The Falconer
Dana Czapnik, 2019
Atria Books
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501193224
Summary
New York, 1993
Seventeen-year-old Lucy Adler, a street-smart, trash-talking baller, is often the only girl on the public courts.
At turns quixotic and cynical, insecure and self-possessed, Lucy is in unrequited love with her best friend and pick-up teammate Percy, scion to a prominent New York family who insists he wishes to resist upper crust fate.
As she navigates this complex relationship with all its youthful heartache, Lucy is seduced by a different kind of life—one less consumed by conventional success and the approval of men.
A pair of provocative female artists living in what remains of New York’s bohemia invite her into their world, but soon even their paradise begins to show cracks.
Told in vibrant, quicksilver prose, The Falconer is a "wholly original coming-of-age story" (Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists), providing a snapshot of the city and America through the eyes of the children of the baby boomers grappling with privilege and the fading of radical hopes. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1978-79 (?)
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Hunter College
• Currently—lives in New York City
Dana Czapnik is the debut author of the 2019 novel, The Falconer. She was born and raised in New York City and, when younger, was obsessed with basket ball like her heroine Lucy Adler—though not as good she claims. "I was just so-so," Czapnik told an interviewer at The Rumpus.
To begin building her writer's chops, Czapnik spent her early adult years as a freelance fact-checker, researcher and journalist in sports—she wrote about girls' field hockey, Nascar, and Woman's college basketball. Later she worked in public relations and marketing for a number of professional sports organizations, finally ending up at the U.S. Tennis Association. She wrote athlete profiles, as well as game reports and match summaries. Her challenge in sports writing was always to keep the same-old-same-old fresh, descriptive, and engaging—a challenge she believes helped with writing her novel.
In addition to receiving a Hertog Fellowship from Hunter College, where she earned her M.F.A., Czapnik has been the recipient of two others: an Emerging Writers Fellowship from the Center for Fiction in 2017, and an NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Fiction from The New York Foundation for the Arts in 2018.
Czapnik lives with her husband and son in New York. (Adapted from online sources.)
Book Reviews
[An] electric debut.… Lucy's fierce first-person point of view is as confident and fearless as she is on the court; she narrates her story with the immediacy and sharpness of a sports commentator, mixed with the pathos and wisdom of a perceptive adolescent charting the perils of her senior year of high school.… But it's arguably the nonhuman characters that give true shape to Lucy's evolution: basketball and New York…Her self-descriptions on the court are as visceral and vivid as any sex scene.… Czapnik, who herself grew up in Manhattan around the same time as Lucy, captures nostalgia—for both a vanishing New York and Lucy's evaporating childhood—with the lucidity of a V.R. headset.… Reader, beware: Spending time with Lucy is unapologetic fun, and heartbreak, and awe as well.
Chloe Malle - New York Times Book Review
The book is filled with highly caffeinated badass riffs on Manhattan's scenery and soul, on feminism and art, on Lucy's generation, and on basketball itself.… Lucy's simmering sexuality, her reaction to the male bodies around her, is never off the page for long. After all the books we've read about horny, frustrated adolescent boys, it's nice to get a different perspective.… Lucy may come from 1993, but her voice and her energy are just what we need right now.
Newsday
Here's a sentence of critical praise I never expected to utter: The descriptions of basketball games in this novel are riveting.… Lucy's sweaty, all-in passion for basketball, which Czapnik captures so vividly in The Falconer, gives me a sharp sense of what I missed out on.… In The Falconer, Dana Czapnik displays this same gift: In bringing Lucy to life, she sees the whole game.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR
[E]lectrifying.… [A] frank, bittersweet coming-of-age story that crackles with raw adolescent energy, fresh-cut prose, and a kinetic sense of place.… And Czapnik, a seasoned sportswriter, has written exactly the book that every smart, strange, wonderful teenage weirdo like Lucy deserves.
Entertainment Weekly
[F]lawed first novel…. Despite a lived-in sense of place, this coming-of-age novel seems to be about jaded young characters who have already come of age, leaving them—and the reader—with little room for emotional development.
Publishers Weekly
You can try, but you’re unlikely to find descriptions of basketball as elegant as those in Dana Czapnik’s debut novel.… The Falconer offers astute observations on the difficulties women confront when trying to succeed in male-dominated fields. In Lucy, Czapnik has created a great character who refuses to conform to expectations.
BookPage
(Starred review) A 17-year-old basketball player faces the complications of growing up smart, talented, and female in New York City circa 1993..… Coming-of-age in Manhattan may not have been done this brilliantly since Catcher in the Rye. That comparison has been made before, but this time, it's true. Get ready to fall in love.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the first few pages, we are introduced to the protagonist as she plays basketball. Describe how the author uses this physical scene to bring us into Lucy’s inner world. What does the description illuminate about the experience of playing sports as a woman? What does basketball mean to Lucy in particular?
2. The third chapter begins with snapshots of the Lower East Side of the 1990s as Lucy perceives it. Does her description of the city remind you of the New York you know today? Why or why not? And how does this break in the narrative serve the larger story?
3. In that same chapter, Lucy tells Violet the story of how she got the white scar on her lip, a self-inflicted attempt to imitate the pretty scar that her classmate Lauren Moon got from a split lip. What does this revelation say about Lucy’s self-perception versus how she believes her peers see her? What do you make of Violet’s comment that even self-inflicted scars are earned?
4. Privilege plays an important role in the story and means something different for each character. Discuss what it means for Lucy, Percy, Alexis, and Violet; how it influences their choices and ways of being; and how being the children of Baby Boomers figures into all of this.
5. Why does Lucy admire the Falconer statue? What is its significance?
6. After her makeover at Percy’s house, Lucy asks Brent’s girlfriend, Kim: "Do you ever think makeup is a signifier of our inferiority?" (p. 99). Examine their conversation. With whom do you agree, and why?
7. After being hit in the face at a basketball game, Lucy takes a moment to herself in the bathroom before leaving the gym (pp. 126–28). Why does she decide to leave?
8. Lucy and Percy’s dynamic changes over the course of one transformative night (pp. 140–51). Describe how the author presents the scene to us. What’s running through Lucy’s mind in this moment? How does Lucy’s perception of love and of Percy change?
9. Lucy spends New Year’s Eve with Alexis at a diner where they share their favorite moments of the past year. Alexis observes that "we’re both chasing a feeling of weightlessness" (p. 173). What do you think she means? What else does Lucy learn about her friend that night?
10. Examine Lucy and her mother’s frank conversation about motherhood (pp. 201–6). How does it pertain to today’s discussions about feminism, and how do generational differences play into their exchange?
11. Compare Lucy and Percy’s relationship at the beginning of the book to their relationship as it stands at the end. What has been lost, and what gained?
12. Trace Lucy’s character development throughout the book. What does she learn about herself and what she wants? How do you feel about the ending? What do you think Lucy’s future will be like?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Last Romantics
Tara Conklin, 2019
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062358202
Summary
Tara Conklin, the New York Times bestselling author of The House Girl, explores the lives of four siblings in this ambitious and absorbing novel in the vein of Commonwealth and The Interestings.
"The greatest works of poetry, what makes each of us a poet, are the stories we tell about ourselves. We create them out of family and blood and friends and love and hate and what we’ve read and watched and witnessed. Longing and regret, illness, broken bones, broken hearts, achievements, money won and lost, palm readings and visions. We tell these stories until we believe them."
When the renowned poet Fiona Skinner is asked about the inspiration behind her iconic work, "The Love Poem," she tells her audience a story about her family and a betrayal that reverberates through time.
It begins in a big yellow house with a funeral, an iron poker, and a brief variation forever known as the Pause: a free and feral summer in a middle-class Connecticut town.
Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that stretches before them, the Skinner siblings—fierce Renee, sensitive Caroline, golden boy Joe and watchful Fiona—emerge from the Pause staunchly loyal and deeply connected.
Two decades later, the siblings find themselves once again confronted with a family crisis that tests the strength of these bonds and forces them to question the life choices they’ve made and ask what, exactly, they will do for love.
A sweeping yet intimate epic about one American family, The Last Romantics is an unforgettable exploration of the ties that bind us together, the responsibilities we embrace and the duties we resent, and how we can lose—and sometimes rescue—the ones we love.
A novel that pierces the heart and lingers in the mind, it is also a beautiful meditation on the power of stories—how they navigate us through difficult times, help us understand the past, and point the way toward our future. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—St. Croix, US Virgin Islands
• Raised—Stockbridge, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.A.L.D., Tufts Univesity; J.D., New York University
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Oregon
Tara Conklin was born on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands and raised in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Yale University and received her Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, as well as a law degree from New York University School of Law.
Conklin's first novel, The House Girl, published in 2013, was a New York Times bestseller. The Last Romantics, her second, was released in 2019.
A joint US-UK citizen, Tara now lives with her family in Seattle. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A]ccomplished…. Conklin’s plot avoids the predictable and adds a new mystery each time an old one is solved, resulting in a clever novel.
Publishers Weekly
[A] full-bodied drama…. The unusual narrative format… is similar to that of Atonement, Ian McEwan's masterpiece, and is equally successful as deployed here. An intimate, soul-searing examination of a modern family and the ties that bind, for better or worse.
Shelf Awareness
Beautifully written.… Despite spanning almost a century, The Last Romantics never feels rushed. Conklin places readers in the center of the Skinner family,… allowing waves of emotion to slowly uncurl. Perfectly paced, affecting fiction.
Booklist
Conklin’s narrator describes the lingering consequences of the traumatic childhood she shared with her three siblings.…. Basically a lukewarm… family melodrama despite the intermittent, never adequately integrated references to a future wracked by climate change.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why does Conklin choose to frame the story from 2077? Did you think that was effective?
2. Which of the four Skinner siblings do you like the most?
3. How do the effects of The Pause ripple through each of the four siblings' lives? If the Pause had not happened, what do you think might have been different for each of the siblings?
4. Noni came out of her paralyzing depression a staunch second-wave feminist. In what ways does her brand of feminism help her children, and in what ways does it let them down? How does Noni’s feminism compare to Fiona’s feminism, and to the feminism we are seeing today? What strides have we made as feminists and where do we still need to go?
5. Joe and Fiona’s last conversation was an argument about Fiona’s blog, The Last Romantic. Whose side do you take in that argument? Why?
6. Caroline and Fiona try to find Luna in several different ways. Why is it so important for them to find her? Did you think the PI was a good idea? The psychic? What did each sister need from the search for Luna, and did she get it? Why didn’t Renee want to find Luna? Which sister did you sympathize with the most? The least?
7. After Joe’s death, the Skinner sisters break apart for a long time. What brings them back together? How much of family relationships are we able to control? Do you think sometimes it is necessary for families to separate for a time?
8. Do you agree with Fiona’s decision to keep Rory’s existence from her siblings?
9. Caroline ends her long marriage to Nathan, but they remain friends to the end of their lives. Renee leaves Jonathan in order to have a baby, but allows him to return when the baby is born. Fiona has two great loves: Will and Henry. What is Conklin saying about the nature of marriage? Why do you think the Skinner sisters find and forge meaningful partnerships, but Joe does not?
10. At the end of her life, Noni tells Renee that, though her children have forgiven her for the Pause, she has never forgiven herself. Consider the ideas of betrayal and forgiveness. Who in this novel is a betrayer? Who is forgiven? Do you think forgiveness is necessary for rebuilding a relationship after betrayal?
11. At the beginning of the novel, Fiona says, "This is a story about the failures of love." At the end she says, "I was wrong to tell you that this is a story about the failures of love. No, it is about real love, true love." Which do you think is correct? Is there room for both?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Lost Children Archive
Valeria Luiselli, 2019
Knopf Doubleday
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525520610
Summary
An emotionally resonant, fiercely imaginative new novel about a family whose road trip across America collides with an immigration crisis at the southwestern border—an indelible journey told with breathtaking imagery, spare lyricism, and profound humanity.
A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. Their destination: Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home.
Why Apaches? asks the ten-year-old son. Because they were the last of something, answers his father.
In their car, they play games and sing along to music. But on the radio, there is news about an "immigration crisis": thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States, but getting detained—or lost in the desert along the way.
As the family drives—through Virginia to Tennessee, across Oklahoma and Texas—we sense they are on the brink of a crisis of their own. A fissure is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet.
They are led, inexorably, to a grand, harrowing adventure—both in the desert landscape and within the chambers of their own imaginations.
Told through several compelling voices, blending texts, sounds, and images, Lost Children Archive is an astonishing feat of literary virtuosity. It is a richly engaging story of how we document our experiences, and how we remember the things that matter to us the most.
With urgency and empathy, it takes us deep into the lives of one remarkable family as it probes the nature of justice and equality today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 16, 1983
• Where—Mexico City, Mexico
• Education—B.A., National Autonomous University of Mexico; Ph.D., Columbia University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Valiera Luiselli is a Mexican-born author and academic, who lives in the United States. Her most recent novel Lost Children Archive was published in 2019.
Luiselli was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Africa. She has since lived in the U.S., Costa Rica, South Korea, India, Spain, and France. After earning a B.A. in Philosophy from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Luiselli moved to New York City to dance.
After a time, Luiselli returned to academia, studying Comparative Literature at Columbia University and completing her Ph.D. Currently, she lives in New York City, where she teaches literature and creative writing at Hofstra University. She also collaborates as a writer with a number of art galleries and has worked as a librettist for the New York City Ballet.
Writing and recognition
Luiselli is the author of the book of essays Sidewalks (2013) and the internationally acclaimed novel Faces in the Crowd (2012), which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her novel The Story of My Teeth (2015) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Los Angeles Times Prize for Best Fiction and the Azul Prize in Canada.
Her most recent nonfiction book, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions (2017), was described by the Texas Observer as "the First Must-Read Book of the Trump Era." It was also a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism.
In 2014 Luiselli was the recipient of the National Book Foundation "5 under 35" award. Luiselli's books have been translated into more than 20 languages, and her work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Granta, McSweeney’s and The New Yorker. (From various online sources including Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/7/2019.)
Book Reviews
Engrossing…brilliantly intricate and constantly surprising—a passionately engaged book [with] intellectual amplitude and moral seriousness, [and] a beautiful, loving portrait of children and of the task of looking after them. It is a pleasure to be a part of the narrator’s family; just as pleasurable is the access we gain to the narrator’s mind—a comprehensive literary intelligence.… Luiselli [is] playful and brave.
James Wood - The New Yorker
A highly imaginative, politically deft portrait of childhood within a vast American landscape—a rollicking tale that contains within it an extremely disciplined exercise in political empathy. Luiselli takes the minds of children seriously, and the reader witnesses their intelligent eyes and ears recording each detail of the borderlands and registering the full terror of them. Luiselli braids and reworks disparate texts….[Characters’] experiences overlap to create a patchwork representation of how America might see itself. The novel’s most thrilling section [is] a single sentence sustained for some twenty pages near the end, which remains measured and crystalline, expertly controll[ed]…. Luiselli shows the reader something she wouldn’t normally see, and also maps the past onto the present in ways that can reveal hidden contours in both.
Lidija Haas - Harper’s
(Starred review) Luisell's powerful, eloquent novel… demonstrates how callousness toward other cultures erodes our own. Her superb novel makes a devastating case for compassion by documenting the tragic shortcomings of the immigration process (31 photos).
Publishers Weekly
The shifting sensibility from observer to child to child migrant gradually pulls readers inside the migrants' nightmare journey to create a story that, if fragmented, feels both timely and intelligent. —Reba Leiding, emerita, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA
Library Journal
(Starred review) Poignant, intense, keenly timely.… [P]olitically relevant. Stories of Latin American asylum seekers and the disappeared Apaches overlap and converge.… This is one of few novels that… conveys the urgency of this unsettling situation.
Booklist
(Starred review) Remarkable, inventive.… As the novel rises to a ferocious climax, Luiselli thunderously, persuasively insists that reckoning with the border will make deep demands of our emotional reserves. A powerful border story, at once intellectual and heartfelt.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Whom do you immediately associate with the "lost children" of the title? How many layers of getting lost appear throughout the novel, and is it always/only children who are lost?
2. What are some of the reasons behind the family’s trip to Apacheria? Discuss the parents’ separate and combined work projects and their expectations for what will happen to the family once they reach their destination.
3. What is the difference between a documentarian and a documentarist? How do the two forms of study, observation, interpretation, and synthesis make their way into the story of the family and the structure of the novel itself?
4. Can you identify the source(s) of conflict between the husband and wife? Which memories of their early life together and time at home with the children, as well as how they respond to the children during the car ride, suggest why they might not be able (or willing) to stay together?
5. The wife/mother is the arguably the primary narrator of the novel, and it’s through her that we understand the goings-on of the trip. Does she prove herself a reliable narrator, and if not, what are her biases in telling this story?
6. The seven boxes in the family’s trunk each belong to a different family member. Do you think you could identify the owner of each box based solely on its contents? What does this suggest about how the characters know one another, and also about how they chose to represent themselves in what they packed for the trip? Consider the wife’s question, "How many possible combinations of all those documents were there? And what completely different stories would be told by their varying permutations, shufflings, and reorderings?" (57).
7. Maps, news clippings, sound recordings, photographs, books, poems, loose notes—these are some of the items that appear in the boxes/text. The family also listens to music, and to audiobooks, in the car. How does having different media contribute to the polyphony of the novel? What do these documents suggest about whether the characters can, or cannot, know a definitive "truth"?
8. For most of the book the four family members don’t have first names, except their chosen Apache names: Swift Feather, Papa Cochise, Lucky Arrow, and Memphis. How are these names more or less representative of their identities in this time period, and to what degree are they chosen or given? How do they ultimately help unite the family when they’re separated, literally and figuratively?
9. How do the stories of Manuela’s daughters and the children on the plane motivate the mother on her journey and in her work?
10. What are the most memorable and significant stops the family makes along the way? How do they reinvent themselves in various situations, and what does this flexibility in their identity suggest both about their bonds and about America today?
11. Consider the repeated stories that are told and read throughout the novel: Geronimo’s fall, Elegies for Lost Children, "Space Oddity," Lord of the Flies, etc. How do they overlap with and inform the narrative of the novel? Do these connections influence your understanding of the novel as an "archive" in and of itself?
12. Although "the boy" is biologically related to his father and "the girl" to her mother, what connects the boy to the mother in the novel? Describe their bond, including how they test and support each other along this journey, and how they share space as.
13. How do the sections in Part II and Part III narrated from the boy’s point of view reflect or shift the mother’s point of view? Reading his interpretation of the events she narrated, did you find any holes, gaps, or misunderstandings in what she knew about him and Memphis—or (potentially surprising) similarities?
14. How does the boy’s voice differ from the mother’s, besides the obvious differences of their age and life experience? Consider his reliance on his camera, the Polaroids in his box, and the stream-of-consciousness narrative in the "Echo Canyon" chapter.
15. What are the children’s ideas about what it will mean to be lost, and how do they each work to stay together even when they’re forced apart? In this sense, are they more in control of their memories—that is, are they more or less "lost"—than their parents?
16. By the end of the novel, has the meaning of "home" changed for the characters? What are some of the ways home was lost, found, and reimagined?
17. The author offers a Works Cited at the end of the book to describe the various references and allusions she draws upon throughout the novel. How does this information change your understanding of what is fact versus fiction, and of the ways stories get passed down among works of art over time? After reading Luiselli’s description of her methodology, would you describe her as a documentarian or a documentarist?
18. The novel draws upon a number of real-life current events and stories about the immigration crisis in the United States. How did you feel about the way this situation was presented? Does the author’s referencing of so many histories and time periods, and narratives of displacement, create a more universal portrayal of being uprooted or without a country? Have you ever felt a similar kind of displacement?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Her One Mistake
Heidi Perks, 2019
Gallery Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501194221
Summary
What should have been a fun-filled, carefree day takes a tragic turn for the worse for one mother when her best friend’s child goes missing in this "seriously page-turning" (author, Lisa Jewell), suspenseful, and darkly twisted psychological thriller.
Charlotte was supposed to be looking after the children, and she swears she was.
But while her three kids are all safe and sound at the school fair, Alice, her best friend Harriet’s daughter, is nowhere to be found. Frantically searching everywhere, Charlotte knows she must find the courage to tell Harriet that her beloved only child is missing—and admit that she’s solely to blame.
Harriet, devastated by this unbearable loss, can no longer bring herself to speak to Charlotte again, much less trust her. Now, more isolated than ever and struggling to keep her marriage afloat, Harriet believes nothing and no one.
But as the police bear down on both women, trying to piece together the puzzle of what happened to this little girl, dark secrets begin to surface—and Harriet discovers that trusting Charlotte again may be the only thing that will reunite her with her daughter.
This breathless and fast-paced novel—perfect for fans of Big Little Lies and The Couple Next Door—takes you on a chilling journey that will keep you guessing until the very last page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Heidi Perks was born and raised in the seaside town of Bournemouth on the south coast of England. After moving up to London for a short stint, she has since moved back to Bournemouth where she now lives with her husband and two children. Heidi has been writing since she was small, though for too many years her day time job and career in marketing got in the way. Now she writes full time and cannot think of anything she would rather be doing. Her One Mistake is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Perks lays down a major twist halfway through, but the book is also a clever, thoughtful study of the fraught power dynamics between women—as well as the people they love (and, sometimes, fear).
Entertainment Weekly
In the vein of Big Little Lies, Heidi Perks's latest thriller gives domesticity a biting edge when a mother's only daughter goes missing, vanishing under the watchful eye of her best friend Charlotte.
InStyle
[T]his psychological thriller is one you can't afford to miss.
Popsugar
The narrative is full of twists and turns… the ending is shocking and totally unexpected.
New York Journal of Books
[G]ripping if flawed…. Most of the plot and the denouement are realistic, but a twist inconsistent with one character’s persona jars. Still, fans of domestic thrillers will look forward to Perks’s second outing.
Publishers Weekly
[This] domestic suspense debut is sure to be a hit…. Once the pace takes off, the twists come fast. Perks is an author to watch, and this examination of true female friendship will appeal to many.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Compare and contrast Harriet Hodder and Charlotte Reynolds. How does Harriet view Charlotte, and vice versa? In what ways does their friendship seem out of the ordinary?
2. How does Charlotte’s momentary distraction implicate her in Alice’s unexplained disappearance? How does her behavior appear in light of her willingness to supervise four children at a crowded school fair? In your opinion, to what extent does Charlotte seem deserving of the attacks she receives from strangers on social media, and, to some extent, her friends?
3. "It pained [Harriet] to be away from Alice. It made her heart quite literally burn, but no one understood that" (p. 23). How does the intensity of Harriet’s attachment to Alice relate to her own upbringing as a child? Given that Harriet has never before been separated from four-year-old Alice, how typical does her level of anxiety seem?
4. How does the specter of Mason Harbridge, the little boy missing from a nearby village, hang over Alice Hodder’s disappearance? Why do the characters in the novel continually reflect on his alleged abduction?
5. "I need to know what [Charlotte] was doing when our daughter went missing… because she obviously wasn’t watching Alice" (p. 56). To what extent does Brian Hodder’s fury at Charlotte Reynolds seem justifiable? What does Alice’s disappearance reveal about the nature of Brian’s marriage to Harriet?
6. How does the author’s decision to narrate the novel through both the present- and past-tense perspectives of Charlotte and Harriet complicate the story the reader must unravel? Of the two perspectives, which did you find more compelling, and why?
7. "Harriet liked having Angela in her life. She thought they could have been friends in very different circumstances" (p. 121). Describe Detective Angela Baker, the family liaison officer assigned to Harriet and Brian Hodder. How does Brian feel about Angela’s presence in his home? What does Angela think of their marriage?
8. In what ways does Charlotte’s friendship with Audrey differ from her friendship with Harriet? Of the two women, whom would you say is Charlotte’s closer friend, and why?
9. The depictions of fatherhood in Her One Mistake span a spectrum from abject neglect to selfless sacrifice. In your discussion, compare and contrast the paternal instincts of Tom Reynolds, Brian Hodder, and Les Matthews. How do their behaviors compare to the book’s depictions of motherhood?
10. At what point in the novel did you become aware of disputed facts that called into question the reliability of the narrator? Whose version of the truth did you find more credible? Why?
11. How does Brian’s concern for Harriet’s mental health undermine her self-confidence and sanity? To what extent does his ongoing characterization of events qualify as gaslighting? What possible motive would Brian have for this behavior? How else might one interpret the bizarre and inconsistent things happening to Harriet?
12. "Harriet read through her notes and the discrepancies between what Brian said and what he tried to make her believe, until she was confident she knew the truth" (p. 146). How do Harriet’s entries in her journal enable her to reject her husband’s version of events? To what extent is her contemporaneous written account persuasive for you as a reader?
13. Why does Harriet deliberately conceal her ability to swim and her father’s existence from her husband?
14. To whom and to what do you think the "one mistake" in the book’s title refers?
15. What does Charlotte’s willingness to help Harriet in Cornwall, despite learning about her friend’s ongoing deception, suggest about her character? What compels Charlotte to ignore her instincts to help Harriet?
16. "She’d never have been able to consider that she could be capable of murder, but then being a mother can make you go to extraordinary lengths" (p. 307). Discuss whether you believe Harriet is innocent or guilty of murder. Why does her unplanned pregnancy with George serve as the catalyst for her plan?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Bowlaway
Elizabeth McCracken, 2019
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062862853
Summary
A sweeping and enchanting new novel from the widely beloved, award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken about three generations of an unconventional New England family who own and operate a candlepin bowling alley
From the day she is discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery at the turn of the twentieth century—nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin, and fifteen pounds of gold on her person—Bertha Truitt is an enigma to everyone in Salford, Massachusetts.
She has no past to speak of, or at least none she is willing to reveal, and her mysterious origin scandalizes and intrigues the townspeople, as does her choice to marry and start a family with Leviticus Sprague, the doctor who revived her.
But Bertha is plucky, tenacious, and entrepreneurial, and the bowling alley she opens quickly becomes Salford’s most defining landmark—with Bertha its most notable resident.
When Bertha dies in a freak accident, her past resurfaces in the form of a heretofore-unheard-of son, who arrives in Salford claiming he is heir apparent to Truitt Alleys.
Soon it becomes clear that, even in her death, Bertha’s defining spirit and the implications of her obfuscations live on, infecting and affecting future generations through inheritance battles, murky paternities, and hidden wills.
In a voice laced with insight and her signature sharp humor, Elizabeth McCracken has written an epic family saga set against the backdrop of twentieth-century America.
Bowlaway is both a stunning feat of language and a brilliant unraveling of a family’s myths and secrets, its passions and betrayals, and the ties that bind and the rifts that divide. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1966
• Raised—Newton, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., Boston University; M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop; M.S.L., Drexel University
• Awards—L.L. Winship/PEN-New England Award; finalist, National Book Award
• Currently—lives in Austin, Texas
Elizabeth McCracken, an author and academic, was born in Boston and raised in Newton, Massachusetts. She earned her B.A. and M.A. from Boston University, an M.F.A. from the Writers' Workshop of Iowa, and an M.S. in Library Science from Drexel University. McCracken's brother is Harry McCracken, former PC World magazine editor-in-chief and founder of Technologizer.com.
McCracken's first novel, The Giant's House, was released in 1996 and was a finalist for The National Book Awards. She has several other novels and short story collections to her name. Most recently she published the novel Bowlaway (2019) to wide acclaim.
In 2014, McCracken published her second collection of stories: Thunderstruck & Other Stories. "Hungry", one among the nine stories, won the 2015 Sunday Times (U.K.) EFG Private Bank Short Story Award—the richest prize in the world for a single short story—$20,000. The complete volume of Thunderstruck also won the U.S. Story Prize and was longlisted for the U.S. National Book Award.
Currently, McCracken holds the James Michener Chair of Fiction at the University of Texas-Austin. She and her husband, novelist Edward Carey, have two daughters and live in Austin.
Fun fact
Ann Patchett mentions in an interview for Blackbird at Virginia Commonwealth University, that Elizabeth McCracken is her "editor" and the only person to read her manuscripts as she is writing. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/6/2019.)
Book Reviews
[The novel] sometimes seems to want to drift off, like a hot-air balloon, into an ionospheric layer of pure twinkle and whimsy.… McCracken in Bowlaway comes close to writing caricatures instead of characters. That this ambitious novel nearly works is a testament to her considerable gifts as a novelist, her instinctive access to the most intricate threads of human thought and feeling.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
Death and life, frosted with macabre comedy.… [McCracken] lures us in with her witty voice and oddball characters but then kicks the wind out of us. She never misses the infamous 7-10 split, managing to hit Annie Proulx and Anne Tyler with the same ball.… Endlessly surprising.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Reading Elizabeth McCracken—the gorgeously-put-together sentences parading the pages like models on a Paris runway; the crazy, original insights; the definitive, wholly fictional pronouncements—is like going on an automotive safari.… I could not stop reading.
Newsday
Loss and love revolve around a bowling alley established at the turn of the 20th century in a Massachusetts village by a woman who seems to have fallen from the sky in this quirky epic about family and fate.
Boston Globe
Elizabeth McCracken is just a delicious writer. This is a book that’s quirky, it’s a book that’s heartfelt.… She’s able to come up with these outlandishly wonderful situations and make it seem not only real, but that you’re going through these experiences with them.
NPR
At the turn of the 20th century a woman is discovered unconscious and nearly frozen in a New England cemetery with only a bowling ball, a candlepin, and 15 pounds of gold on her. The National Book Award finalist’s exuberantly weird and wonderful book unravels the mystery.
Oprah Magazine
The brilliantly witty writer returns with her first novel in 18 years, an incisive and generous portrait of a New England clan who operate a candlepin bowling alley.
Entertainment Weekly
In an enthralling, magical story that spans generations, award-winning writer McCracken imbues a candlepin alley with the ability to bowl over sexism.
Ms. Magazine
(Starred review) [S]tellar…. McCracken writes with a natural lyricism that sports vivid imagery and delightful turns of phrase. Her distinct humor enlivens the many plot twists that propel the narrative, making for a novel readers will sink into and savor.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) McCracken has one of the more distinctive literary sensibilities readers will likely encounter; playful, inventive, and fearless, she's drawn to oddball characters and the eccentric fringes of American family life. —Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT
Library Journal
(Starred review) McCracken writes with exuberant precision, ingenious lyricism, satirical humor, and warmhearted mischief and delight.… [A]compassionate and rambunctious saga about love, grief, prejudice, and the courage to be one’s self.
Booklist
(Starred review) Parents and children, lovers, brothers and sisters, estranged spouses, work friends and teammates all slam themselves together and fling themselves apart across the decades in the glorious clatter of McCracken's unconventional storytelling.
Kirkus Reviews
(Starred review) To tell a good tale, you need drama—and in this area, Bowlaway spares no expense.… McCracken’s prose is well-tooled, hilarious and tender, thoughtful and jocular. Her characters inhabit their world so completely, so bodily, that they could’ve truly existed.
BookPage
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. Bowlaway's narrator describes Bertha as "the oddest combination of the future and the past anyone had ever met." What does it mean to be both future and past? What is your reaction to Bertha—how would you describe her?
2. An undercurrent of sadness exists in midst of the novel's humor and wackiness. More than one woman has lost a child, an echo from Elizabeth McCracken's own life, about which she has written in her 2008 memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.
In this novel, LuEtta Mood, a Truitt's Alleys' patron, mourns a child: in the presence of another's baby, she is "a combustible gas, [and] the baby is a match… best to keep them apart." LuEtta fears she appears "dangerous and might never be allowed to hold anyone's baby again." Does McCracken's writing have resonance when it comes to someone you know (or yourself) who has experienced a tragedy of this magnitude?
3. LuEtta's own tragedy allows her to view Bertha's gaiety as "trained on a trellis of sorrow." What does she mean? Does her observation suggest that Bertha's exuberance is forced or inauthentic? Or does it mean that Bertha is truly able to live with joy, by somehow learning to put aside her sorrow?
4. Bertha bowls "because the earth was an ocean and you had to learn to roll upon it." Consider that winsome observation as, perhaps, an overriding theme of the novel. How, then, does that concept play out in the novel through various of its multitude of characters and events?
5. In what way does Bowlaway suggest that there is a great deal of mystery in peoples' lives? Ultimately, what do the many characters in the novel seek… and what does Truitt's Alleys provide them?
6. Talk about Joe Wear and his surprising life trajectory. What do you think of the description of Joe as "an elbow"?
7. Of all the characters, do you have a few select favorites, or one in particular?
8. In what ways do Bertha's views on issues of race, class, and gender seem more in tune with the 21st century than the early 20th. Does that anomaly trouble you: in some way detract from your reading? Or does Bertha's progressiveness enhance your reading experience? What were the prevailing attitudes toward African Americans and women 100 years ago?
9. Talk about the way the author foreshadows characters' fates long before they play out in the novel. In what way does this foreshadowing suggest the role of destiny in our lives… or exude a mysterious presence in life, or lend the novel an epic-like quality?
10. What insights did you come across, or what struck you most about this novel? What about children and love, yoga as laundry, dark thoughts (everybody needs them), and spiral staircases?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)