Find Me
Andre Aciman, 2019
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374155018
Summary
In this spellbinding exploration of the varieties of love, the author of the worldwide bestseller Call Me by Your Name revisits its complex and beguiling characters decades after their first meeting.
No novel in recent memory has spoken more movingly to contemporary readers about the nature of love than Andre Aciman’s haunting Call Me by Your Name. First published in 2007, it was hailed as "a love letter, an invocation… an exceptionally beautiful book" (Stacey D’Erasmo, The New York Times Book Review). Nearly three quarters of a million copies have been sold, and the book became a much-loved, Academy Award–winning film starring Timothee Chalamet as the young Elio and Armie Hammer as Oliver, the graduate student with whom he falls in love.
In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio’s father, Samuel, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, who has become a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train with a beautiful young woman upends Sami’s plans and changes his life forever.
Elio soon moves to Paris, where he, too, has a consequential affair, while Oliver, now a New England college professor with a family, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return trip across the Atlantic.
Aciman is a master of sensibility, of the intimate details and the emotional nuances that are the substance of passion.
Find Me brings us back inside the magic circle of one of our greatest contemporary romances to ask if, in fact, true love ever dies. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 2, 1951
• Where—Alexandria, Egypt; Rome, Italy
• Education—B.A., Lehman College; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University
• Awards—Whiting Award, Lambda Literary Award
• Currently—lives in New York, New York, USA
Andre Aciman (as-i man) is an Egyptian-Italian-American writer. He is the author of several novels, including Call Me by Your Name (2007) and its sequel Find Me (2020). In 1995, he published his memoir Out of Egypt, which won the Whiting Award, and which The New York Times compared to the styles of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lawrence Durrell, and Anton Chekkov.
Background and career
Aciman was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and raised in a multi-lingual family that spoke primarly French but also Italian, Greek, Ladino, and Arabic. His parents were Sephardic Jews, of Turkish and Italian origin, whose families had settled in Alexandria in 1905. Because increased tensions with Israel put Jews in a precarious position, his family left Egypt in 1965.
After his father purchased Italian citizenship for the family, Aciman moved with his mother and brother to Rome while his father moved to Paris. In 1968 the family moved to New York City. From there, Aciman attended Lehman College. He went on to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University.
Currently, Aciman is distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York, where he teaches the history of literary theory and the works of Marcel Proust. He previously taught creative writing at New York University and French literature at Princeton and Bard College. He lives with his wife and three sons in New York. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retreived 4/9/2020.)
Book Reviews
[Find Me] is a lyrical meditation on being forced to move to another location after the party’s over, on the Sisyphean task of trying to replicate the magic of young passion…. [I]t strikes an affectingly melancholy chord.
Josh Duboff - New York Times Book Review
Aciman’s quiet, label-free presentation of bisexual life represents a minor triumph…. Likewise, his refusal to offer easy resolution, which infuses the whole romantic enterprise with a kind of delicious melancholy. There are moments, particularly in the final chapter, that may have readers gazing tearfully into their fireplaces, real or imaginary, just like Timothee Chalamet at the end of Luca Guadagnino’s superlative film of Call Me by Your Name.
Charles Arrowsmith - Washington Post
Aciman writes about desire with blunt honesty, describing erotic and emotional interactions with equal clarity. Sex can be tender or not, the connection lasting or ephemeral, but it is almost always multilayered and complex.
Clea Simon - Boston Globe
With all of the richly painted details, emotional nuance, and deeply affecting romance as the first installment, this book will draw you in and make you believe in love again.
Good Housekeeping
The elegant sequel to Aciman’s celebrated first novel, Call Me by Your Name, revisits his best-known characters some 20 years later.… The novel again demonstrates Aciman’s capacity to fuse the sensual and the cerebral in stories that touch the heart.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Aciman's incandescent sequel to the acclaimed Call Me by Your Name.… [Find Me is] a beautiful 21st-century romance that reflects on the remembrance of things past and the courage to embrace the future. Highly recommended. —Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL
Library Journal
(Starred review) Call Me By Your Name was widely praised for its treatment of the nature of love, a theme that Find Me continues with subtlety and grace. Its treatment of the characters' psychology is astute and insightful… [Will the] star-crossed lovers reunite…. One can only hope.
Booklist
Aciman blends assuredly mature themes with deep learning… and his story is touching without being sentimental even if some of it is too neatly inevitable. An elegant, memorable story of enduring love across the generations.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The book begins with a conversation between Miranda and Samuel, who are strangers. What is your first impression of them? What are the similarities and differences in attitudes, beliefs, and experiences that draw them to each other? What are the critical moments in the development of their relationship? Why might Aciman have chosen this opening, given that the story ultimately belongs to Elio and Oliver?
2. Who is the "Me" of the book’s title? Might there be more than one? What does it mean to be found? How are the themes of love, loss, and loneliness explored in each section?
3. Miranda’s father is editing a dissertation that contains parables, which he says prove that "life and time are not in sync" and that we all "have many lives." How is each character’s story a parable about how time and life are not in sync? How does each have many lives?
4. What is a vigil? What are the vigils that Samuel and Elio are looking forward to in Rome? How does Miranda’s presence affect their experience? Are there other significant vigils in the book?
5. How are Elio and Michel, in the early stages of their love affair, like Samuel and Miranda? What vigils do they establish? What are the differences between the two couples?
6. When Michel asks his father, Adrien, who Leon was, his father replies, "You’re making me remember, and I don’t want to remember." What is the significance of the story of Adrien and Leon and the musical score, the cadenza, that Adrien leaves to his son? Is there a message hidden in Leon’s work? Why is Elio determined to help Michel discover who Leon was and how he died? In the end, does Michel find out what his father didn’t want to remember?
7. What is a canard? Why is it the word Michel chooses to describe Oliver’s marriage? Is it meant to be ironic? Are there other canards in the characters’ lives?
8. The story of Elio and Oliver is revealed gradually. What do we learn about them in each section? How did Elio’s experience of first love as a boy shape the man he has become? What do we know of Oliver’s life in the years after he left Elio in Italy? What does Oliver’s infatuation with Erica and Paul tell us about him? What happens in the time between the events of "Capriccio" and "DaCapo"?
9. How are the different stages of life—youth, middle age, and old age—depicted? How does a character’s age influence his or her beliefs about life, love, and death? Why does Miranda tell Samuel that "none of it would have happened if you were thirty years old?" How does Michel describe the differences between his younger and older selves?
10. Samuel and Miranda, and Elio and Michel, meet entirely by chance. In the relationships that develop between each couple, as well as Oliver’s fantasy relationship with Erica and Paul, what are the moments, words, or gestures that suggest the possibility of deeper connections?
11. Which of the characters believe in the power of fate to alter the course of a life? How does fate or chance impact each of them? How do the lyrics of the Brazilian song that Elio translates for Michel resonate throughout the book?
12. Does Elio fall in love with Michel? Has Oliver ever loved anyone except Elio? Why does love come so easily to Samuel and Miranda? In general, what lessons does the book teach us about love? To whom is it available? What sacrifices does it require?
13. Miranda’s father says, "I want those who outlive me to extend my life, not just to remember it." Michel tells Elio, "Nothing belongs to the past." How are past and present intertwined and what are the consequences? By the end of the book, how have the lives of the deceased been extended into the present? Why does Elio feel that his half brother is his and Oliver’s child, and that his father "knew it just as well, had known it all along?"
14. What is the significance of each section title? For example, "Tempo," the title of the first section, is a musical term meaning the speed at which a passage of music is or should be played. It is also the Italian word for time. How do both meanings resonate? What are the meanings of the other section titles? How are the themes of time and music interrelated?
15. Find Me is a romance, a tragicomic novel that spans generations, with themes of separation and reunion, exile, and jealousy. What are the moments of tragedy in the book? Of comedy? How else do the stories of Samuel and Miranda, Elio and Michel, and Elio and Oliver work as romance? What are other stories of lovers reunited after years of separation?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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The Giver of Stars
Jojo Moyes, 2019
Penguin Publishing
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399562488
Summary
From the author of Me Before You, set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond.
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England.
But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.
The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who's never asked a man's permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.
What happens to them—and to the men they love—becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion.
These heroic women refuse to be cowed by men or by convention. And though they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives.
Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic—a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—B.A., London University
• Awards—Romantic Novel of the year (twice)
• Currently—lives in Essex, England
Jojo Moyes is a British journalist and the author of 10 novels published from 2002 to the present. She studied at Royal Holloway, University of London and Bedford New College, London University.
In 1992 she won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to attend the postgraduate newspaper journalism course at City University, London. She subsequently worked for The Independent for the next 10 years (except for one year, when she worked in Hong Kong for the Sunday Morning Post) in various roles, becoming Assistant News Editor in 1988. In 2002 she became the newspaper's Arts and Media Correspondent.
Moyes became a full-time novelist in 2002, when her first book Sheltering Rain was published. She is most well known for her later novels, The Last Letter From Your Lover (2010), Me Before You (2012), and The Girl You Left Behind ( 2013), all of which were received with wide critical accalim.
She is one of only a few authors to have won the Romantic Novelists' Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Award twice—in 2004 for Foreign Fruit and in 2011 for The Last Letter From Your Lover. She continues to write articles for The Daily Telegraph.
Moyes lives on a farm in Saffron Walden, Essex with her husband, journalist Charles Arthur, and their three children. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Moyes paints an engrossing picture of life in rural America, and it's easy to root for the enterprising librarians.
New York Times Book Review
Though she made her mark writing contemporary romance, Moyes proves just as adept at historical fiction…. The Giver of Stars is a celebration of love, but also of reading, of knowledge, of female friendship, of the beauty of our most rural corners and our enduring American grit: the kind of true grit that can be found in the hills of Kentucky and on the pages of this inspiring book.
Washington Post
The Giver of Stars is a richly rewarding exploration of the depths of friendship, good men willing to stand up to bad and adult love. Moyes celebrates the power of reading in a terrific book that only reinforces that message.
USA Today
Moyes stays true to her narrative and takes full advantage of the sense of place she gained from repeated trips to the area…. riveting. A stirring novel sure to please Moyes’ many fans.
Minnesota Star Tribune
A captivating tale of love, friendship, and self-actualization.
People
Bestselling author Jojo Moyes has a unique way of using her prose to make her readers feel great emotions—love, passion, sadness, and grief—and her latest novel, The Giver of Stars, does not disappoint in that respect.
Parade
An adventure story grounded in female competence and mutual support, and an obvious affection for the popular literature of the early 20th century, give this Depression-era novel plenty of appeal.… There’s plenty of drama, but the reader’s lasting impression is one of love.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Rich in history, with well-developed characters and a strong sense of place, this book will fit well in any library’s fiction collection. For fans of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants or Catherine Marshall’s Christy. —Terry Lucas, Shelter Island P.L., NY
Library Journal
(Starred review) [A] homage to the power of reading and the strength of community.… A must-read for women's fiction.
Booklist
Moyes brings an often forgotten slice of history to life.… the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library…. A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. While writing and researching The Giver of Stars, author Jojo Moyes visited Kentucky several times, stayed in a tiny cabin on the side of a mountain, rode horses along the trails, and met the people of Kentucky. Did the characters and sense of place feel authentic to you?
2. Alice, a Brit, is an outsider, but eventually acclimates to her new home in Appalachia, and even falls in love with her new home. She grew up in a rarefied world in England, so the change to "unremarkable" Baileyville proved quite the shock to her system. Have you ever moved to a distinctly different location? What was that transition like? How did you adapt?
3. Literacy and censorship are significant issues in The Giver of Stars, issues that affect the women of the novel very differently from the men. Why do you think Moyes chose to focus on these topics?
4. Moyes has said she wanted to write a book about women who had agency and who actually did something worthwhile, rather than simply existing in a romantic or domestic plotline. Margery is the unofficial leader of the librarians and Alice eventually inherits that role when Margery is jailed. Yet throughout the book, most of the women do have their moments of agency. Which of these moments struck you most intensely? Did you ever wish a character had taken action when she hadn’t? If so, when, and what could she have done different?
5. The novel features families from vastly different backgrounds, and one of the central issues in the book is that of class inequality. In which scenarios did you see these dynamics play out, and between which characters?
6. There are numerous ways in the book in which the acquisition of knowledge changes characters’ lives: protecting their homes, educating their families, liberating themselves from marriages. Have you ever experienced such a shift—after gaining new knowledge—in your own life? How did it happen? If not, what held you back from making a change?
7. The relationships between men and women in this book vary greatly—from Margery and Sven’s loving, mutual respect and passion, to Bennett and Alice’s bewildered lack of understanding to the true love affair that blossoms between Alice and Fred. How did you come to understand the differences among these relationships? Did you relate to any of them in particular or to any of the problems these women faced in their romantic relationships?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Other Mrs.
Mary Kubica, 2020
Park Row Books
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778369110
Summary
Hypnotic and addictive and perfect for fans of You, The Other Mrs. is the twisty new psychological thriller from Mary Kubica, the blockbuster bestselling author of The Good Girl.
Sadie and Will Foust have only just moved their family from bustling Chicago to small-town Maine when their neighbor, Morgan Baines, is found dead in her home.
The murder rocks their tiny coastal island, but no one is more shaken than Sadie, who is terrified by the thought of a killer in her very own backyard.
But it’s not just Morgan’s death that has Sadie on edge. It’s their eerie old home, with its decrepit decor and creepy attic, which they inherited from Will’s sister after she died unexpectedly.
It’s Will’s disturbed teenage niece Imogen, with her dark and threatening presence. And it’s the troubling past that continues to wear at the seams of their family.
As the eyes of suspicion turn toward the new family in town, Sadie is drawn deeper into the mystery of Morgan’s death. But Sadie must be careful, for the more she discovers about Mrs. Baines, the more she begins to realize just how much she has to lose if the truth ever comes to light. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Mary Kubica is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of THE GOOD GIRL and PRETTY BABY. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children and enjoys photography, gardening and caring for the animals at a local shelter. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[C]onvoluted psychological thriller…. Red herrings litter the multiple narratives, adding too much weight to an already overloaded plot, and a soapy twist disappoints. Hopefully, this is a temporary slump for the talented Kubica.
Publishers Weekly
[A] mesmerizing tale…, but the story is wrapped up a bit too neatly. What is satisfying is the oppressive sense of unease that permeates this intense psychological suspense drama. —Gloria Drake, Oswego P.L. Dist., IL
Library Journal
A fresh start for a doctor and her family becomes a living nightmare…. Kubica ably molds Sadie into a (very) complicated woman with simmering secrets; as usual, she…can turn almost any location into a swirling cesspool of creepy possibility.… A page-turner.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss Sadie’s role as a victim in the novel. Do you think she should be held accountable for her actions in the story? In what ways is she the hero of her own story?
2. Trauma and recovery are important themes in the book. Talk about how each of the characters experience trauma and how it informs their actions and behaviors. Do you think it’s possible to ever fully recover from trauma?
3. What do you think of Sadie’s relationships with Otto and Tate? How do you think her experiences from the past shaped her approach to motherhood?
4. Discuss the characters of Sadie, Camille, and Mouse. How does each perspective enhance the story?
5. Did you think Will was a good husband throughout the novel? Do you think he ever truly loved Sadie?
6. How does the isolated setting play into the novel? In what ways does it compound the circumstances in the story and Sadie’s state of mind?
7. What is the significance of the title, The Other Mrs.? Who did you think it referred to at different parts of the story?
(Questions from the author's website.)
Celestial Bodies
Jokha Alharthi (Trans., Marilyn Booth), 2019 (U.S.)
Catapult Books
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781948226943
Summary
Winner, 2019 Man Booker International Prize
In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada.
These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present.
Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth.
The first novel originally written in Arabic to ever win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English, Celestial Bodies marks the arrival in the United States of a major international writer. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 1978
• Where—Oman
• Education—Ph.D., University of Edinburgh
• Awards—Man Booker Prize
• Currently—lives in Al Khoudh, Oman
Jokha Alharthi, an Omani writer and academic, is the 2019 recipient of the Man Booker International Prize for her novel, Celestial Bodies.
Alharthi was born and educated primarily in Oman. She traveled to the U.K. where she earned her doctorate in classical Arabic literature from Edinburgh University. Currently, she is an associate professor in the Arabic department at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman.
Alharthi has published three collections of short stories, three children's books, and three novels: Manamat, Sayyidat el-Qamar (Celestial Bodies), and Narinjah (Bitter Orange). She has also authored academic works.
The novel, Sayyidat el-Qamar, translated into English by Marilyn Booth and retitled Celestial Bodies, was published in the UK in 2018 and the US in 2019. The novel was the first work by an Arabic-language writer to be awarded the Man Booker International Prize (2019), and the first novel by an Omani woman to appear in English translation.
In addition to English, Sayyidat el-Qamar (Celestial Bodies) has been translated into the following 20 languages: Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, English, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Malayalam, Norwegian, Persian, Portuguese (also, Brazilian Portuguese), Romanian, Russian, Sinhalese, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/10/20.)
Book Reviews
[A]n innovative reimagining of the family saga. Alharthi avoids the languid ease of chronology in favor of dozens of taut character studies, often no more than a page or two…. These vignettes are sharp-eyed, sharp-edged and carefully deployed in a multigenerational jigsaw that’s as evasive as it is evocative…. [T]his is a contemporary novel, insistent and alive… a treasure house.
Beejay Silcox - New York Times Book Review
The glimpses into a culture relatively little known in the West are fascinating.
Jane Housham - Guardian (UK)
A book to win over the head and the heart in equal measure . . . Its delicate artistry draws us into a richly imagined community — opening out to tackle profound questions of time and mortality and disturbing aspects of our shared history.… Celestial Bodies evokes the forces that constrain us and those that set us free.
Bettany Hughes, chair - 2019 Man Booker International Prize
The form’s remarkable adaptability is on brilliant display…. Celestial Bodies tells the subtle and quietly anguished story of several unhappy marriages.… Yet one of the book’s signal triumphs is that Alharthi has constructed her own novelistic form…. The novel moves back and forth between the generations very flexibly, often in the course of a single page or even paragraph, owing to Alharthi’s deft management of time shifts.… The leaps and swerves seem closer to poetry or fable or song than to the novel… at once intimate and historical.
James Wood - New Yorker
[B]reathtaking… Celestial Bodies… follows the lives of three sisters from a small village at a time of rapid social and economic change in Oman. The tale is replete with history, poetry, and philosophy, but also slavery, broken marriages, passion, and not-so-secret lovers.
Kim Gattas - Atlantic
(Starred review) Alharthi throws the reader into the midst of a tangled family drama…. The novel rewards readers willing to assemble the pieces of Alharthi’s puzzle into a whole, and is all the more satisfying for the complexity of its tale.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Readers will come to this novel… and will leave with a sense of original storytelling, rich characterization, and transparently bright language, expertly translated. Highly recommended.
Library Journal
(Starred review) Althari’s unique structure demands vigilant participation as it is more jigsaw puzzle than linear narrative…. Pieced together, a robust village emerges, of alliances and betrayals, survival and murder, surrender and escape. Patient readers will be seductively, magnificently rewarded.
Booklist
(Starred review) [A] sweeping story of generational and societal change…. A richly layered, ambitious work that teems with human struggles and contradictions, providing fascinating insight into Omani history and society.
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 CELESTIAL BODIES … then take off on your own:
1. Celestial Bodies, set in a village outside of Muscat, Oman, depicts a culture unknown to most of us in the West. What have you learned, what surprised you, what angered, even shocked, you?
2. Outwardly, women have little, in any, power in Mideast society. But things are not always what they seem. Talk about the kind of subtle, invisible power that the women in Celestial Bodies wield outside the traditional norms.
3. Most of the chapters are told in the third person point-of-view, except for Abdallah, Mayya's husband, who speaks to us in his own voice. Why might Alharthi have made the decision to let Abdallah tell his own story?
4. Speaking of Abdallah and Mayya, when Abdallah asks his wife if she loves him, she responds, "It's the Egyptian films, have they eaten your brain?" What do you make of her response? What does she mean? How does Abdallah react?
5. How are the characters in this novel trapped by the past? Who is trying to escape the past? Who is trying to ignore, or paper over, the past?
6. In what way does the novel hint at currents of change coming to this very traditional society?
6. Much has been made of the book's structure with multiple points of view and shifting time frames. It's even been referred to as a puzzle with each chapter providing a single piece of the picture. Did you find the narrative choice difficult to follow? Why might Alharthi have chosen to write her novel using this fragmented technique?
7. The book's title, literally, means "ladies of the moon." How does this title (perhaps more so than Celestial Bodies) reflect the novel?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Imaginary Friends
Stephen Chbosky, 2019
Grand Central Publishing
720 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781538731338
Summary
A young boy is haunted by a voice in his head in this acclaimed epic of literary horror from the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Christopher is seven years old.
Christopher is the new kid in town.
Christopher has an imaginary friend.
We can swallow our fear or let our fear swallow us.
Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night with her child.
Together, they find themselves drawn to the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. It's as far off the beaten track as they can get. Just one highway in, one highway out.
At first, it seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. for six long days, no one can find him.
Until Christopher emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a treehouse in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again.
Twenty years ago, Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower made readers everywhere feel infinite. Now, Chbosky has returned with an epic work of literary horror, years in the making, whose grand scale and rich emotion redefine the genre. Read it with the lights on. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 25, 1970
• Where—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Southern California
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Chbosky was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and raised in the Pittsburgh suburb of Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania. He is the son of Lea (nee Meyer), a tax preparer, and Fred G. Chbosky, a steel company executive and consultant to CFOs. He was raised Catholic, and has a sister, Stacy. As a teenager, Chbosky "enjoyed a good blend of the classics, horror, and fantasy." He was heavily influenced by J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye and the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams.
Chbosky graduated from Upper St. Clair High School in 1988, around which time he met Stewart Stern, screenwriter of the 1955 James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause. Stern became Chbosky's a friend and mentor, and proved a major influence on Chbosky's career.
Career
In 1992, Chbosky graduated from the University of Southern California's screenwriting program. He wrote, directed, and acted in the 1995 independent film The Four Corners of Nowhere, which got Chbosky his first agent, was accepted by the Sundance Film Festival, and became one of the first films shown on the Sundance Channel. In the late 1990s, Chbosky wrote several unproduced screenplays, including ones titled Audrey Hepburn's Neck and Schoolhouse Rock.
In 1994, Chbosky was working on a "very different type of book" than The Perks of Being a Wallflower when he wrote the line, "I guess that's just one of the perks of being a wallflower." Chbosky recalled that he "wrote that line. And stopped. And realized that somewhere in that [sentence] was the kid I was really trying to find." After several years of gestation, Chbosky began researching and writing The Perks of Being a Wallflower, an epistolary novel that follows the intellectual and emotional maturation of a teenager who uses the alias Charlie over the course of his freshman year of high school. The book is semi-autobiographical; Chbosky has said that he "relate[s] to Charlie[...] But my life in high school was in many ways different."
The book, Chbosky's first novel, was published by MTV Books in 1999, and was an immediate popular success with teenage readers; by 2000, the novel was MTV Books' best-selling title, and The New York Times noted in 2007 that it had sold more than 700,000 copies and "is passed from adolescent to adolescent like a hot potato." Wallflower also stirred up controversy due to Chbosky's portrayal of teen sexuality and drug use. The book has been banned in several schools and appeared on the American Library Association's 2006 and 2008 lists of the 10 most frequently challenged books.
In 2000, Chbosky edited Pieces, an anthology of short stories. The same year, he worked with director Jon Sherman on a film adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, though the project fell apart by August 2000. Chbosky wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film adaptation of the Broadway rock musical Rent, which received mixed reviews. In late 2005, Chbosky said that he was writing a film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
In the mid-2000s, Chbosky decided, on the advice of his agent, to begin looking for work in television in addition to film. Finding he "enjoyed the people [he met who were working] in television," Chbosky agreed to serve as co-creator, executive producer, and writer of the CBS serial television drama Jericho, which premiered in September 2006. The series revolves around the inhabitants of the fictional small town of Jericho, Kansas, in the aftermath of several nuclear attacks. Chbosky has said the relationship between Jake Green, the main character, and his mother, reflected "me and my mother in a lot of ways." The first season of Jericho received lackluster ratings, and CBS canceled the show in May 2007. A grassroots campaign to revive the series convinced CBS to renew the series for a second season, which premiered on February 12, 2008, before being canceled once more in March 2008.
It has been announced that Chbosky has written the screenplay for the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower and will also direct it. Production of the film adaptation took place in Spring 2011, and is now completed. The film stars Logan Lerman and Emma Watson, and was released in September, 2012. Chbosky resides in Los Angeles, California. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Twenty years after his smash hit novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky returns… [with] an ambitious tale narrated through multiple perspectives, mashing together horror, fairy tales and the (rewritten) Bible.… But Chbosky's true skill is in turning a book of absolute horrors—both fantastical and real—into an uplifting yarn. [This is] a book about so much—fate, destiny, redemption, power.… Chbosky has his eye firmly on humanity.
New York Times Book Review
Imaginary Friend is an all-out, not-for-the-fainthearted horror novel, one of the most effective and ambitious of recent years.… Perhaps its most impressive aspect is the confidence with which Chbosky deploys the more fantastical elements of his complex narrative.… A very human story with universal implications.
Washington Post
Chbosky's horror writing stands on its own… a gleeful meditation.… [T]he nine years Chbosky reportedly spent writing the book shows in his well-crafted scares, snappy pacing and finely turned plot. Imaginary Friend is well worth the time for those who dare.
Time
An epic work of horror.… Ambitious and compulsively readable… a Grand Guignol exploration of what it means to have faith, even in the face of absolute hopelessness.… His willingness to pursue and present answers to such meaningful queries is what elevates Imaginary Friend from a more than competent attempt at the horror genre to a formidable work…. Imaginary Friend is a book that far outstrips the expectations of his chosen genre.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
[Y]ou won't want to miss this spooky, surreal thriller.… You'll feel locked in the battle between good and evil as Kate and Christopher fight for their lives.
Good Housekeeping
[A] tale of good vs. evil that never gels.… Chbosky brings deep humanity to his characters and creates genuinely unsettling tableaux,… but… repetition extends the narrative while diminishing its impact.… This doorstopper is long on words but short on execution.
Publishers Weekly
This doorstopper literary horror novel is thematically rich and feels cinematic.… [T]he last third of the book feels overly drawn out… a bit long-winded but still impressive in scope and truly scary.
Library Journal
A creepy horror yarn that would do Stephen King proud.… The reader will want to be sure that no one is hiding behind the chair…. That's the nature of a good scary story—and this one is excellent. A pleasing book for those who like to scare themselves silly.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. "I will protect you," Christopher silently resolves to his mother at the end of Chapter 1 of Imaginary Friend. Discuss the various ways that Christopher protects his mother over the course of the novel, as well as the ways Kate protects Christopher. What does it mean to protect those you love? From what should one’s loved ones be protected? Does this impulse ultimately do more harm or good, whether in your own personal experience or in Chbosky’s novel?
2. Imaginary Friend is a different genre than Chbosky’s celebrated debut novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Have you read both books? If so, in what ways are the novels similar? In what ways are they different? If you haven’t read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, do you think you’ll now be seeking it out after reading Imaginary Friend? If you’ve already read Perks, do you think you’ll be rereading it after reading Chbosky’s second novel, or will you think of his debut in a different light?
3. What other novels, TV shows, or movies do you feel share a kinship with Imaginary Friend? Where in the canon of horror and contemporary literary fables does Chbosky’s novel fall, in your estimation?
4. What or who do you think was the cloud with the smiling face that first led Christopher into the Mission Street Woods?
5. Kate chooses to raise her son Catholic, so he can grow up the same way his father had grown up; Mary Katherine, who plays an important role in the story, is also religious. Discuss the role of religion and spirituality in the novel.
6. Discuss the phrase "To think it is to do it," which Chbosky uses to explore a handful of different themes in the novel. What does the phrase mean to Mary Katherine? What does it mean to Christopher?
7. Discuss the role that nightmares play in Imaginary Friend. What does Chbosky’s novel seem to suggest about the things that haunt us, whether during our waking hours or when we’re asleep?
8. What conclusions can you make about the nature of evil as Chbosky describes it? Of good as Chbosky describes it?
9. Imaginary Friend takes places in the months leading up to Christmas. Why do you think Chbosky chose to set this story then? What effect does the countdown to Christmas lend to the overall mood and tone of the read?
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is, in part, famous for a handful of quotable lines like "I feel infinite" and "We accept the love we think we deserve." If Imaginary Friend becomes, like Chbosky’s debut, a novel that readers continue to discuss for years to come, what lines from his newest seem most likely to you to stand the test of time? What about this novel might readers remember long after finishing it?
11. How does this book help you to better understand people with mental and/or social disabilities? Does it make you think differently about the young or old people, or see them in a different light?
12. What do you think is the scariest part of Imaginary Friend? Explain why.
13. What was your favorite part of Imaginary Friend? Explain why.
(Questions issued by the publisher.)