Take Me Apart
Sara Sligar, 2020
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374719593
Summary
A spellbinding novel of psychological suspense that follows a young archivist’s obsession with her subject’s mysterious death as it threatens to destroy her fragile grasp on sanity.
When the famed photographer Miranda Brand died mysteriously at the height of her career, it sent shock waves through Callinas, California.
Decades later, old wounds are reopened when her son Theo hires the ex-journalist Kate Aitken to archive his mother’s work and personal effects.
As Kate sorts through the vast maze of material and contends with the vicious rumors and shocking details of Miranda's private life, she pieces together a portrait of a vibrant artist buckling under the pressures of ambition, motherhood, and marriage.
But Kate has secrets of her own, including a growing attraction to the enigmatic Theo, and when she stumbles across Miranda's diary, her curiosity spirals into a dangerous obsession.
A seductive, twisting tale of psychological suspense, Take Me Apart draws readers into the lives of two darkly magnetic young women pinned down by secrets and lies. Sara Sligar's electrifying debut is a chilling, thought-provoking take on art, illness, and power, from a spellbinding new voice in literary suspense. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Sara Sligar is an author and academic based in Los Angeles, where she teaches English and creative writing as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s in History from the University of Cambridge.
Sligar's writing has been published in McSweeney’s, Quartz, The Hairpin, and other outlets. Take Me Apart is her first novel. (From publishers.)
Book Reviews
[A] circuitous first novel…. Ms. Sligar’s debut is by turns an art-world satire, an erotic romance and a descent into madness. Its gratifying conclusion proves well worth the digressive journey.
Wall Street Journal
A dark, thoughtful thriller.
Washington Post
At the center of this dark drama is mental illness…. Reading it is painful. Yet, these are some of the novel’s strongest pages…. A reading experience like peeling an onion layer by layer…. You can put this book down, just not for long.
USA Today
A juicy thriller.
Entertainment Weekly
[P]erceptive…. Sligar shows off a keen ear for dialogue…. With a cool style and fast pace, Sligar achieves a propulsive exploration of these ambitious women’s inner turbulence in response to an abusive man in each of their lives.
Publishers Weekly
A study of two damaged and sympathetic women…. Love story, hate story, mystery—all in one.
Library Journal
Sligar handles her intricately structured story's threads with delicacy in this impressive, suspenseful debut.
Booklist
(Starred review) [V]ividly rendered…. Sligar delivers an intriguing mystery while tackling big themes, especially sexism and the societal restraints placed on women's bodies and minds. The results are spellbinding. A raw and sophisticated debut.
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 TAKE ME APART ... then take off on your own:
1. What do we learn about Miranda through her diary and the other artifacts of her life that Kate Aitkin works through?
2. How—and why—do the revelations of Miranda's life affect Kate's own mental stability? What are the deeply held secrets in Kate's own life?
3. What role does Kate's Aunt Louise play in Kate's unraveling?
4. Talk about how the novel explores the way artists, especially if they are women, often suffer for their creations.
5. What does this novel reveal about the negative effects of ambition, success, and fame?
6. In what way can gossip in this novel be both corrosive as well as useful?
7. What do you think about Theo? Does your assessment of him change?
8. As you, along with Kate, continued to read through Miranda's archival material, whom did you first suspect, and did your suspicions shift from one character to another? Who and why?
9. Do you find the novel's conclusion satisfying?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Maze at Windermere
Gregory Blake Smith, 2018
Penguin Publishing
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780735221925#
Summary
A richly layered novel of love, ambition, and duplicity, set against the storied seascape of Newport, Rhode Island
A reckless wager between a tennis pro with a fading career and a drunken party guest—the stakes are an antique motorcycle and an heiress’s diamond necklace—launches a narrative odyssey that braids together three centuries of aspiration and adversity.
- A witty and urbane bachelor of the Gilded Age embarks on a high-risk scheme to marry into a fortune;
- a young writer soon to make his mark turns himself to his craft with harrowing social consequences;
- an aristocratic British officer during the American Revolution carries on a courtship that leads to murder;
- a tragically orphaned Quaker girl, in Newport’s earliest days, imagines a way forward for herself and the slave girl she has inherited.
In The Maze at Windermere Gregory Blake Smith weaves these intersecting worlds into a brilliant tapestry, charting a voyage across the ages into the maze of the human heart. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1951
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., Bowdoin College; M.F.A., Iowa Writers’ Workshop
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—teaches at Carelton College in Minnesota
Gregory Blake Smith is an American novelist and short story writer. His novel, The Divine Comedy of John Venner (1992), was named a Notable Book of by The New York Times Book Review and his short story collection The Law of Miracles (2011) won the 2010 Juniper Prize for Fiction and the 2012 Minnesota Book Award.
Smith holds an undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has been the George Bennett Fellow at Phillips Exeter Academy and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He is currently the Lloyd P. Johnson Norwest Professor of English and the Liberal Arts at Carleton College. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Staggeringly brilliant…. An extraordinary demonstration of narrative dexterity. Moving up and down through the strata of history, Smith captures the ever-changing refractions of human desire…. The cumulative effect of this carousel of differing voices is absolutely transporting…. Looking up from this remarkable novel, one has an eerie sense of history as a process of continuous erasure and revision. You’ll start The Maze of Windermere with bewilderment, but you’ll close it in awe.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
(Starred review.) [E]motionally expansive…. [A]s the author makes ever-increasing connections among the stories and shuffles them all into one unbroken narrative, the novel becomes a moving meditation on love, race, class, and self-fulfillment…across the centuries.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Smith moves nimbly among his tales' various settings and diverse characters…. Historical fiction buffs as well as those with romantic leanings should enjoy this intricate tale. —Jennifer B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll. Northeast
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Intricately designed and suspenseful…. Though references to… The Portrait of a Lady, abound, readers don’t have to be familiar with [James'] novels to relish the well-differentiated voices and worlds or to enjoy the way the novel’s five story lines subtly shift and begin to merge.
Booklist
Five parallel stories, from Colonial times to the present, set in Newport, Rhode Island.… What seems overly complicated at first becomes quite compelling by the end, when the stories alternate in ever shorter flashes toward resolution.
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 Maze of Windermere … then take off on your own:
1. Were you able to keep characters and time frames straight, especially during the early pages of the novel? Or were you disoriented by the frequent cycling through five different stories?
2. Consider the primary characters in each of the stories—the tennis player, writer, bachelor/dandy, British officer, and Quaker girl. Do you find some more compelling, or more sympathetic, than others?
3. (Follow-up to Question 2) In what way are the characters in each of the stories morally compromised?
4. Notice how diligently Gregory Blake Smith shifts the tone and language in each story, keeping them appropriate to the time frame. Can you point to some of those stylistic changes?
5. How does the author begin to weave these seemingly separate stories together? Or, using another metaphor, can you find echos from older stories in more recent ones (e.g., the tennis player walking by the cemetery)?
6. The young writer (presumably Henry James) thinks about how he must portray his characters:
…in all their complexity, all their blind groping, engaged … in the hubbub of connection … where clarity lies remote and … to have them feel the beats of their hearts though they may not know for what their hearts beat.
• Might that description fit the state of humanity—in real life, not just in fiction—for all of us?
7. What is the significance of the title to the story?
8. Talk about the novel's ending, when the various time frames seem to collapse in on one another. What might the author be suggesting about the workings of history, about the universality of love and morality? Again, consider the young Henry James's words:
We each of us strive to understand who we are, why we are here, to love and be loved, and that for all that striving, we are each of us lost in the mystery of our own heart.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Book of V.
Anna Solomon, 2020
Henry Holt & Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250257017
Summary
A bold, kaleidoscopic novel intertwining the lives of three women across three centuries as their stories of sex, power, and desire finally converge in the present day.
Lily is a mother and a daughter. And a second wife. And a writer, maybe? Or she was going to be, before she had children.
Now, in her rented Brooklyn apartment she’s grappling with her sexual and intellectual desires, while also trying to manage her roles as a mother and a wife in 2016.
Vee (Vivian Barr) seems to be the perfect political wife, dedicated to helping her charismatic and ambitious husband find success in Watergate-era Washington D.C.
But one night he demands a humiliating favor, and her refusal to obey changes the course of her life—along with the lives of others.
Esther is a fiercely independent young woman in ancient Persia, where she and her uncle’s tribe live a tenuous existence outside the palace walls.
When an innocent mistake results in devastating consequences for her people, she is offered up as a sacrifice to please the King, in the hopes that she will save them all.
In The Book of V. these three characters' riveting stories overlap and ultimately collide, illuminating how women’s lives have and have not changed over thousands of years. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1976
• Raised—Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; M.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Awards—Pushcart Prize (twice); Missouri Review Editor Prize
• Currently—lives in Providence, Rhode Island
Anna Solomon is an American journalist and the author of two novels—The Little Bride (2011), Leaving Lucy Pear (2016), and The Book of V. (2020).
Raised in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Solomon received her B.A. from Brown University. After college, she moved back home to try her hand at writing, enrolling in workshops at GrubStreet writing center in Boston.
When her year at home was up, Solomon took an internship with National Public Radio's Living On Earth in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The position led to a full-time reporting job and eventually to radio producing, working both in Cambridge and Washington, D.C., on award-winning stories about environmental policy and politics. Although Solomon says she loved working in radio (and may some day return to it), she was still committed to becoming a novelist, so she used her commuting time to write fiction.
An M.F.A. at Iowa Writers' Workshop came next. Needing steady income following her graduate work, Solomon turned to teaching. All the while, she continued writing—short stories and essays—for periodicals.
She also married a classmate from Brown, by then a professor in environmental climate law. The couple has two children.
In 2011 Solomon published her first novel, The Little Bride; five years later she released Leaving Lucy Pear. Both books have been well received.
Solomon’s short fiction has appeared in One Story, Georgia Review, Harvard Review, Missouri Review, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. Her stories have twice been awarded the Pushcart Prize, have won The Missouri Review Editor’s Prize, and have been nominated for a National Magazine Award.
Her essays have been published in the New York Times Magazine, Slate’s Double X, and Kveller. (Adapted from Wikipedia and Glen Urquhart School bio. Retrieved 9/20/2016.)
Book Reviews
The engrossing, highly readable, darkly sexy third novel by Anna Solomon…. The Book of V. is a meditation on female power and powerlessness, the stories told about women and the ones we tell about and to ourselves.
New York Times Book Review
Irresistible, sexy and intelligent…. The Book of V. radiates a dynamism that invites rereads and generously keeps giving―challenging and arousing us as it delights.
Washington Post
(Starred review) Solomon connects [three] stories in a way that’s fresh and tantalizing, with fascinating intergenerational discussions about desire, duty, family, and feminism, as well as a surprising, completely believable twist. This frank, revisionist romp through a Bible tale is a winner.
Publishers Weekly
[An] evocative novel…each story line is captivating.
Booklist
(Starred review) Esther, the Old Testament teenager …is connected across the ages to two more contemporary women in a sinuous, thoughtful braid of women’s unceasing struggles for liberty and identity.… A bold, fertile work… almost old-school in its feminist commitment.
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 BOO OF V. … then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the way that author Anna Solomon connects the Esther story in the Bible with Vee's story in this novel. In fact, how does the specter of Vashti haunt the entire novel? Maybe a better question to ask would be: what do all three women have in common?
2. When Vee refuses her husband's request did you find the plotline, at that point, improbable? If so, did it make a difference to you in your enjoyment of the overall novel? Why or why not?
3. How is Lily caught between two competing mores, her mother's and her neighbors'? Does the conundrum she finds herself in resonate in any way with you?
4. Lily has this overwhelming (or perhaps underlying?) sense that she "has not become the type of woman she was supposed to become." Talk about what she means.
5. (Follow-up to Question 4) Have you ever felt, like Lily, that you have not lived up to expectations? If so, whose expectations? Yours? Others'? If others', whose?
6. How does Solomon use Lily and her husband to portray domestic life? How would you describe their marriage?
7. What does Lily discover about her mother after Ruth dies? Were you as surprised as Lily? Does the revelation change your perception of Ruth?
8. How does Vashti in Anna Solomon's retelling of Esther's story become the savior? "It's not her story they want, of course," Vashti muses. "She is only the queen who is banished so their part could begin." What does she mean?
m. Anna Solomon is keenly interested in the stories told about women: those told about women and those women tell themselves. Can you think of other stories or myths that could be reworked to achieve a different outcome of powerlessness vs. power for women?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Girls in the Picture
Melanie Benjamin, 2018
Random House
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101886809
Summary
A fascinating novel of the friendship and creative partnership between two of Hollywood’s earliest female legends—screenwriter Frances Marion and superstar Mary Pickford
It is 1914, and twenty-five-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles, where she is determined to live independently as an artist.
But the word on everyone’s lips these days is "flickers"—the silent moving pictures enthralling theatergoers. Turn any corner in this burgeoning town and you’ll find made-up actors running around, as a movie camera captures it all.
In this fledgling industry, Frances finds her true calling: writing stories for this wondrous new medium. She also makes the acquaintance of actress Mary Pickford, whose signature golden curls and lively spirit have given her the title of America’s Sweetheart. The two ambitious young women hit it off instantly, their kinship fomented by their mutual fever to create, to move audiences to a frenzy, to start a revolution.
But their ambitions are challenged both by the men around them and the limitations imposed on their gender—and their astronomical success could come at a price.
As Mary, the world’s highest paid and most beloved actress, struggles to live her life under the spotlight, she also wonders if it is possible to find love, even with the dashing actor Douglas Fairbanks. Frances, too, longs to share her life with someone. As in any good Hollywood story, dramas will play out, personalities will clash, and even the deepest friendships might be shattered.
With cameos from such notables as Charlie Chaplin, Louis B. Mayer, Rudolph Valentino, and Lillian Gish, The Girls in the Picture is, at its heart, a story of friendship and forgiveness. Melanie Benjamin perfectly captures the dawn of a glittering new era—its myths and icons, its possibilities and potential, and its seduction and heartbreak. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Melanie Hauser
• Birth—November 24. 1962
• Where—Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
• Education—Indiana University (Purdue University at Indianapolis)
• Currently—lives near Chicago, Illinois
Melanie Benjamin is the pen name of American writer, Melanie Hauser (nee Miller). Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Melanie is one of three children. Her brother Michael Miller is a published non-fiction author and musician. Melanie attended Indiana University—Purdue University at Indianapolis then married Dennis Hauser in 1988; they presently reside in the Chicago, Illinois area with their two sons.
Early writing
As Melanie Hauser, she published short stories in the In Posse Review and The Adirondack Review. Her short story "Prodigy on Ice" won the 2001 "Now Hear This" short story competition that was part of a WBEZ (Chicago Public Radio) program called Stories on Stage, where short stories were performed and broadcast.
When Melanie sold her first of two contemporary novels, she had to add Lynne to her name (Melanie Lynne Hauser) to distinguish her from the published sports journalist Melanie Hauser.
The first of Melanie's contemporary novels, Confessions of Super Mom was published in 2005; the sequel Super Mom Saves the World came out in 2007. In addition to her two contemporary novels, Melanie also contributed an essay to the anthology IT'S A BOY and maintained a popular mom blog called The Refrigerator Door.
Fictional biographies
Under the pen name Melanie Benjamin (a combination of her first name and her son's first name), she shifted genres to historical fiction. Her third novel, Alice I Have Been, was inspired by Alice Liddell Hargreaves's life (the real-life Alice of Alice in Wonderland). Published in 2010, Alice I Have Been was a national bestseller and reached the extended list of The New York Times Best Seller list.
In 2011, Benjamin fictionalized another historical female. Her novel The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb focuses on the life of Lavinia Warren Bump, a proportionate dwarf featured in P.T. Barnum's shows.
Her third fictionalized biography, The Aviator's Wife, was released in 2013 and centers on Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of famed aviator, Charles Lindberg.
The Swans of Manhattan, published in 2016, revolves around the Truman Capot-Babe Paley friendship and the glitterati of Manhattan during the 1950s and '60s. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/14/2016.)
Book Reviews
It is not a spoiler to share that the first scene of THE GIRLS IN THE PICTURE is the beginning of the final chapter—a genius move by author Melanie Benjamin. I flipped through the pages enthralled, needing to understand how the great Mary Pickford, a glamorous 1920s actress, had happened upon such a sad ending personally.… This timely, well-crafted piece of historical fiction is absolutely worth the read. MORE…
Abby Fabiaschi, author - LitLovers
In the era of #MeToo, Girls could not be more timely—or troubling—about the treatment of women in the workplace.… [Melanie] Benjamin portrays the affection and friction between Pickford and Marion with compassion and insight.… As Hollywood preps for an Oscar season riven with the sexual mistreatment scandal, the rest of us can settle in with this rich exploration of two Hollywood friends who shaped the movies.
USA Today
A boffo production.… One of the pleasures of The Girls in the Picture its no-males-necessary alliance of two determined females—#TimesUp before its time.… Inspiration is a rare and unexpected gift in a book filled with the fluff of Hollywood, but Benjamin provides it with The Girls in the Picture.
NPR
Full of Old Hollywood glamour and true details about the pair’s historic careers, The Girls in the Picture is a captivating ode to a legendary bond.
Real Simple
The heady, infectious energy of the fledgling film industry in Los Angeles is convincingly conveyed—and the loving but competitive friendship between these two women on the rise in a man’s world is a powerful source of both tension and relatability.
Publishers Weekly
Benjamin immerses readers in the whirlwind excitement of Mary’s and Frances’ lives while portraying a rarely seen character, an early woman screenwriter, and deftly exploring the complexities of female friendship.
Booklist
A smart, fond backward glance at two trailblazers from an era when being the only woman in the room was not only the norm, but revolutionary.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Frances and Mary, especially in their younger years, feel they have to choose between pursuing careers and fulfilling traditional expectations of marriage. Did these conversations surprise you? Do you think these pressures still exist for women today?
2. How did you react to the sexism Frances and Mary face in the movie industry? How do the women confront their male superiors, and do they ever prove the men who doubted them wrong?
3. Mary’s role as an actress places her in the spotlight while Frances works behind the scenes as her "scenarist." Does Mary’s fame work for or against her? What about Frances’s relative anonymity?
4. Did you identify more with Frances or Mary? Why? Whose chapters were more intriguing to you?
5. Benjamin references many movies produced in the early days of Hollywood, such as The Birth of a Nation, The Poor Little Rich Girl, and The Big House. Have you seen or heard of any of these movies? If not, did the novel make you want to seek them out?
6. Have you ever had a friendship as supportive, productive, and collaborative as Frances and Mary’s? Do you think that kind of friendship can only thrive between the young and ambitious, or can you find it at any age?
7. Are Frances and Mary truly equal creative partners or does one woman hold more power over the other? How do the power dynamics of their partnership change over the course of their lives?
8. Consider the opening line of Mary’s first chapter: "Mama, I made a friend!" How does Mary’s relationship with her mother affect her throughout her career? Does Mary feel as though she needs to prove something to her—and if so, what?
9. Seeing the frontlines of the war—and the war’s brutal ramifications for women—is a turning point for Frances. Why do you think Frances makes the decision to leave her flourishing career and go to war? How did Mary’s decision to stay in Hollywood and work on her movies affect her relationship with Frances?
10. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were the most celebrated couple of their age. Can you think of a similarly iconic couple alive today?
11. Despite their remarkable success, Frances and Mary experience anxiety in their personal and professional lives. What is Frances most insecure about? What makes Mary feel imprisoned?
12. What do you think causes Frances and Mary’s friendship to fracture? Do you think it was one incident or many over time? Was it inevitable?
13. Throughout the novel, Benjamin sprinkles appearances from well-known celebrities and illuminating details about the time and place of the story. What did you learn about early Hollywood and the naissance of the movie industry?
14. What female screenwriters or directors do you know of? How do sexism, gender bias, and inequality manifest in the film industry today?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Afterlives
Thomas Pierce, 2018
Penguin Publishing
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594632532
Summary
Jim Byrd died.
Technically.
For a few minutes.
The diagnosis: heart attack at age thirty. Revived with no memory of any tunnels, lights, or angels, Jim wonders what—if anything—awaits us on the other side.
Then a ghost shows up. Maybe. Jim and his new wife, Annie, find themselves tangling with holograms, psychics, messages from the beyond, and a machine that connects the living and the dead.
As Jim and Annie journey through history and fumble through faith, they confront the specter of loss that looms for anyone who dares to fall in love. Funny, fiercely original, and gracefully moving, The Afterlives will haunt you. In a good way. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA
• Education—M.F.A., University of Virginia
• Awards—National Book Foundation 5 under 35 Award
• Currently—lives in near Charlottesville, Virginia
Thomas Pierce was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He received a Master's in creative writing from the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, where he still lives with his wife and daughters.
Pierce spent five years with National Public Radio as a blogger, writer, and producer, work that he says has informed his fiction, particularly his appreciation for "clarity," as well as and the need to be "interesting and engaging."
When you write a radio script, there’s software you can use with a little clock in the upper right-hand corner that tells you the piece’s length in terms of time.… One of my short stories might steal forty-two minutes from your life. I want to use your time wisely.
Pierce's acclaimed short story collection, Hall of Small Mammals, was published in 2015, eventually winning him the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Award. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Oxford American, and elsewhere.
Afterlives, Pierce's debut novel, was released in 2018. (Adapted from online sources, including the publisher and The Paris Review. Retrieved 2/4/2018.)
Book Reviews
In Thomas Pierce’s warm and inventive debut novel, The Afterlives, reality is slippery, time is out of joint and profound disorientation is a feature of daily existence.… Pierce is brilliant at painting an entire life—encompassing passion, missed opportunities, tragedy—in a few pages. He also isn’t afraid to pose the biggest questions: How do we deal with loss? What are the limits and possibilities of love? What is the nature of time?.… Pierce has worked … magic, connecting us to fictional characters who seem, somehow, 100 percent real.
Daryl Gregory - New York Times Book Review
[T]ouching, thought-provoking.… Part love story and part speculative sci-fi, it’s a meandering, albeit meaningful, look at marriage, technology and ghosts—those of the otherworldly type that may exist but also specters of our past that influence our present.
USA Today
Excellent… The Afterlives is sprinkled with "Black Mirror"-style futuristic touches.… The [novel] is as much a dialogue and an attempt at reconciliation between faith and science as it is a contemplation of the opportunities of second chances.
Salon
[A] free-spirited lark that questions how people live with the presence of death.… Pierce’s breezy style only partially saves the overlong novel from a lack of urgency affecting almost all of its numerous story lines. When it gels, the novel manages a rare and significant clarity about the effects of death on the living….
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Pierce has a gift for probing the limits of the psychic realm to uncover the benevolence that manifests from metaphysical insight. Truly remarkable.
Library Journal
[Pierce] considers life, death, and what comes after.… Timeless questions. Tedious answers.
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 Afterlives … then take off on your own:
1. After his near brush with death (or his brush with near death?) Jim Byrd confesses to Annie that "I feel like maybe I've had a brain injury and didn't realize it." What does he mean? What's out whack? Do you begin to question Jim's perception of reality?
2. Jim is concerned that, even though technically dead, he has no memory of the other side: "No lights, no tunnels, no angels." Let's get down to the personal: What do you expect or hope to see on the "other side"? Have you had, or do you know of anyone who has had, a near death experience? How have they described it? Have you read Heaven Is for Real?
3. How do you describe Jim? Various readers say they found him irritating or not terribly engaging. Others found him funny and delightfully inquisitive. Where do you stand? Does the author bring him to life for you? What about Annie?
4. How would you describe Jim's religious beliefs at the beginning of the novel? After his heart attack, he sets off on a quest to find out what happens after death. With the HeartNet—literally the *power* of life and death—in his pocket, would a stronger traditional belief in the Judeo-Christian God have eased his heart (yep, pun intended)? This is a personal and highly subjective question, friends.
5. Describe Jim's hometown of Shula, N.C. Do you find it funny, with its hologram chickens …or slightly appalling, with its "boutique virus" …or both …or neither?
6. What is Sally Zinker's "daisy theory"? Can you explain it? Does it explain the strange occurrences Byrd experiences? It challenges Jim's concept of reality; does it challenge yours?
7. What role do the stories of Shula's previous residents play in the novel? Why does the author set them in the present tense? Which were your favorites?
8. (Follow-up to Question 7) What about Clara Lennox? In what way is her life a counterpoint to Jim's? A number of readers feel her story was actually more interesting than Jim and Annie's. What do you think?
9. Some reviewers (more than some) have found the book overlong, even tedious. Others say it took time but that eventually they were pulled in—all the way in. How did you experience reading Afterlives?
10. In a Vanity Fair interview, author Thomas Pierce said that most of us stay sane by trying "to avoid any thought of our own impermanence." Why don't Jim and Annie do likewise? What drives them in their quest?
11. Pierce is also interested in exploring the boundaries of technology. One of the questions posed in The Afterlives is the degree to which technology can hurt us as well as help us—holograms and AI, for example. How will we recognize the dangers, and at what point will we be able to turn back?
12. Ultimately, what do Jim and Annie come to understand about life and death? Do those two states have clear-cut boundaries? Or is everything truly more complicated than most of us believe?
13. In a book about matters of life and death, much has been made about the humor. What in particular did you find funny?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)