Along the Watchtower
Constance Squires, 2011
Penguin Publishing Group
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594485237
Summary
Set against the closing years of the Cold War, Constance Squires's debut novel introduces the family of Army Major Collins, as told through the eyes of Lucinda Collins—the vibrant, headstrong eldest daughter.
Living on a military base, Lucinda feels displaced and isolated. Over time she finds her own tribe through rock and roll, and meets fellow Army brats, GIs, a ghost, and Syd, who knows how it goes. But after her father's final shocking betrayal, the only world she's ever believed in falls in like the Berlin Wall, leaving Lucinda to chart a new path.
In spare, heart-wrenchingly beautiful prose, Squires offers us a rare glimpse into the experiences and sacrifices of an American military family. Along the Watchtower is a powerful story that reveals what it really means to fight for the things we believe in and to defend the ones we love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1968-69
• Where—Fort Sill, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—Ph.D., Oklahoma State University
• Awards—Oklahoma Book Award for Fiction
• Currently—lives in Edmond, Oklahoma
Constance Squires is a city person who needs a lot of room. She lives on an acre at the northern edge of Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, with her husband, daughter, three dogs, a cat, a lizard, a piano, a guitar, a drum set, and too many books.
Squires holds a Ph.D. in English from Oklahoma State University and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. In addition to Live from Medicine Park (2017), she is the author of the novel Along the Watchtower (2011), which won the 2012 Oklahoma Book Award for Fiction, and a short story collection, Wounding Radius (2018). Her short stories have appeared in Guernica, Atlantic Monthly, Shenandoah, Identity Theory, Bayou, Dublin Quarterly, This Land, and a number of other magazines.
Squires' nonfiction has appeared in Salon, New York Times, Village Voice, World Literature Today, Philological Review, Largehearted Boy, and has been featured on the NPR program Snap Judgment. She has been a regular contributor to the RollingStone500: Telling Stories in Stereo (thers500.com) and wrote the screenplay for Sundance fellow Jeffrey Palmer's 2015 short film, Grave Misgivings. In addition, she was a judge in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, episode of Literary Death Match, and was the featured guest editor for This Land’s summer fiction issue.
She is currently working on a novel, The Real Remains, about a couple in modern-day Oklahoma forced to deal with aftershocks from the 1995 Murrah Bombing when a friend they believed but could never prove perished in the blast reaches out to them on Facebook. (From the author's website .)
Book Reviews
While those interested in military life will be drawn to this book, readers of all backgrounds and of many age groups will feel a strong connection to these characters. This is a superbly told coming-of-age story.
World Literature Today
[T]he coming-of-age of Lucinda Collins, an adolescent army brat growing up in Germany in the '80s.… The best moments come from brief encounters with with uniformed men… pushing Lucinda to make personal her abstract philosophies, on war, the military, and herself.
Publishers Weekly
[A]n inside look at the life of an army brat.… A unique, compelling perspective on the dynamics of a military family, springing from the experience of someone who has been there. —Susanne Wells, MLS, Indianapolis
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. We learn that the Collins family’s first European tour of duty took place when Lucinda was a toddler, and that at that time they "had gone everywhere and seen everything and loved every minute of it." The mood at their arrival at Grafenwoehr, about a dozen years later, is markedly different. Major Collins says about his wife, "I thought she’d take care of things. She always takes care of things"; Faye Collins says to her husband, "A new low, Jack." What do you infer about the intervening years from what Jack and Faye each fail to do at the outset of the novel?
2. Frequent moves subject Lucinda to the repeated loss of friends and, as a result, she experiences conflict at the prospect of friendship with her fellow Army brats. How are the circumstances of Syd Eliot’s and, later, Liz Frye’s departure from Grafenwoehr further complicated? How might Lucinda’s experience of those leave-takings be different if the book was set in today’s world instead of in the 1980s?
3. Very early in Syd and Lucinda’s acquaintance, Major Collins tells Syd "not to give up" on his daughter and calls him Lucinda’s "one true love." Given what you know about Jack Collins, why do you think he says this?
4. The author chooses a Jim Morrison lyric as an epigraph: "Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind," which could literally refer to Lucinda and the Nazi ghost in her Bible school classroom. How does it refer to her in a thematic sense? Major Collins also refers to his Vietnam "ghosts." What evidence is there that this could be literal and not merely the "turn of phrase" his wife dismisses it as?
5. How do Faye Collins and Major Collins cope with Lucinda’s condition?
6. Lucinda shoulders adult responsibility in some critical situations—taking it upon herself to go to her father for help when the family arrives at Grafenwoehr, calling her mother back from Paris when she learns her father is sleeping with a neighbor. How do Jack and Faye Collins intentionally or unintentionally place onerous responsibilities on their daughter? How do their behaviors shape Lucinda’s later relationships with each parent?
7. Despite her father’s rigid beliefs and occasionally unsympathetic behavior, Lucinda’s bond with Major Collins is apparent—for example, she tries to get him to see the Nazi ghost in her Bible school classroom, and he gets Private First Class Nately to tape record albums for her. Do your perceptions of Lucinda’s father change throughout the book? What incidents shift your opinion of him? What surprises you about him?
8. Faye Collins was a foster child and a former "hippie," who married and had Lucinda at a young age. Does her past help you understand her views and actions?
9. Unpleasant realities of war and military life are described or alluded to in the book, including Major Collins’s slides of dead bodies in Vietnam and Major Frye’s apparent post-traumatic stress disorder. How does Lucinda react when confronted with each of these realities?
10. Lucinda’s obsession with music underpins a portion of the book and informs its title, Along the Watchtower. How does it relate to her circumstances in the book?
11. In many ways, Lucinda seems like a typical teenager—obsessed with music, testing boundaries, engaging in risky behavior with no serious consequences. What, if anything, makes her atypical? Though largely unspoken, what evidence is there that her parents’ split is affecting her life at this time?
12. Private Rob Dalton, Lucinda’s ride to the Nuremberg punk club, nicknames himself "Toxic" and at times seems to embody his moniker. How do your sympathies toward this character change: When his tattoos are revealed? When he is beaten up at the punk club? When he drives the tank through the school wall to free the ghost? When his swastika tattoo is revealed to be a fake? What draws Lucinda to him in the first place? What does "Toxic" have in common with her?
13. Major Collins’s Army experience started in Vietnam and ended with the Gulf War. In what ways were those two experiences different for him? How do these experiences parallel varying American public opinions of war, in general? Given that Collins is a career soldier, do his opinions of war change? In what ways do you agree or disagree with him?
15. Lucinda and Syd connect periodically, in different circumstances, throughout the course of the novel. How do the changes we see in Syd each time parallel Lucinda’s personal exploration and growth? Are you surprised, as she is, to find out he enlists in the Army? How do you feel about his explanation?
16. After Faye Collins’s remarriage and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lucinda can feel in her father "the hole in him howling to be filled" and thinks, "she had the same hole.… [It was] their most striking similarity." Is Major Collins himself aware of that hole? Do you think he tries to fill it himself? How?
17. The existence of Shiloh, the Collins’ ancestral home in Texas, is introduced early in the novel and becomes a symbol to Lucinda who envies "people who were from somewhere, who had one constant place that tethered their memories." Discuss the impact that Shiloh has on Lucinda when she finally visits, and juxtapose the idea of Shiloh with the historical Roanoke Colony in Virginia, which also fascinates Lucinda. How are the two different? Why do you think Major Collins goes back to the rock on which Lucinda was conceived? In what ways does this help her process her life situation?
18. Why do you think Major Collins sets up college funds for his two younger children but doesn’t help out Lucinda financially? Is there any evidence in the book that she would "rather die than take help from anybody," as he says? Why, despite her feelings, doesn’t she contradict him more forcefully?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Grammarians
Cathleen Schine, 2019
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374280116
Summary
An enchanting, comic love letter to sibling rivalry and the English language.
From the author compared to Nora Ephron and Nancy Mitford, not to mention Jane Austen, comes a new novel celebrating the beauty, mischief, and occasional treachery of language.
The Grammarians are Laurel and Daphne Wolfe, identical, inseparable redheaded twins who share an obsession with words.
They speak a secret “twin” tongue of their own as toddlers; as adults making their way in 1980s Manhattan, their verbal infatuation continues, but this love, which has always bound them together, begins instead to push them apart.
Daphne, copy editor and grammar columnist, devotes herself to preserving the dignity and elegance of Standard English. Laurel, who gives up teaching kindergarten to write poetry, is drawn, instead, to the polymorphous, chameleon nature of the written and spoken word.
Their fraying twinship finally shreds completely when the sisters go to war, absurdly but passionately, over custody of their most prized family heirloom: Merriam Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition.
Cathleen Schine has written a playful and joyful celebration of the interplay of language and life. A dazzling comedy of sisterly and linguistic manners, a revelation of the delights and stresses of intimacy, The Grammarians is the work of one of our great comic novelists at her very best. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1953
• Where—Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Barnard College
• Currently—lives in New York City and Venice, California
In her own words:
I tried to be a medieval historian, but I have no memory for facts, dates, or abstract ideas, so that was a bust. When I came back to New York, I tried to be a buyer at Bloomingdale's because I loved shopping. I had an interview, but they never called me back. I really had no choice. I had to be a writer. I could not get a job.
After doing some bits of freelance journalism at the Village Voice, I did finally get a job as a copy editor at Newsweek. My grammar was good, but I can't spell, so it was a challenge. My boss was very nice and indulgent, though, and I wrote Alice in Bed on scraps of paper during slow hours. I didn't have a regular job again until I wrote The Love Letter.
The Love Letter was about a bookseller, so I worked in a bookstore in an attempt to understand the art of bookselling. I discovered that selling books is an interdisciplinary activity, the disciplines being: literary critic, psychologist, and stevedore. I was fired immediately for total incompetence and chaos and told to sit in the back and observe, no talking, no touching.
I dislike humidity and vomit, I guess. My interests and hobbies are too expensive or too physically taxing to actually pursue. I like to take naps. I go shopping to unwind. I love to shop. Even if it's for Q-Tips or Post-Its.
When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:
When I left graduate school after a gruesome attempt to become a medieval historian, I crawled into bed and read Our Mutual Friend. It was, unbelievably, the first Dickens I had ever read, the first novel I'd read in years, and one of the first books not in or translated from Latin I'd read in years. It was a startling, liberating, exhilarating moment that reminded me what English can be, what characters can be, what humor can be. I of course read all of Dickens after that and then started on Trollope, who taught me the invaluable lesson that character is fate, and that fate is not always a neat narrative arc.
But I always hesitate to claim the influence of any author: It seems presumptuous. I want to be influenced by Dickens and Trollope. I long to be influenced by Jane Austen, too, and Barbara Pym and Alice Munro. I aspire to be influenced by Randall Jarrell's brilliant novel, Pictures from an Institution. And I read Muriel Spark when I feel myself becoming soft and sentimental, as a kind of tonic. (From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview.)
Book Reviews
[D]elightful…. Schine's novels… are often as witty as they are erudite…. Schine takes her readers on deep philosophical dives but resurfaces with craft and humor; her tone is amused and amusing…. What holds The Grammarians aloft, ultimately, is its riveting love story—not the tale of the twins or their respective marriages but of their deep bond with language.
New York Times Book Review
Captivating…. [W]ritten with the tender precision and clarity of a painting by Vermeer…. [A] wry and elegant novel.
Associated Press
This tale of twins who "elbow each other out of the way in the giant womb of the world" is smart, buoyant and bookish—in the best sense of the word.
Heller McAlpin - NPR
Cathleen Schine’s new novel, The Grammarians, is a rich study of the factions that attempt to define how language should be used.
The New Yorker
Schine’s sparkling latest has a prickly underside that keeps it anchored to the daily stresses of family life.… [T]he affectionate tension between the twins provides enough conflict for a lifetime. This coolly observant novel should please those who share the twins’ obsession with slippery language.
Publishers Weekly
Laurel and Daphne, identical-twin wordsmiths with fiery red hair, are this novel’s protagonists, but language is its heart ... central as words may be to this witty tale of sibling rivalry, Schine also suggests that there are some things they just can’t quite capture.
Booklist
(Starred review) Schine's warmth and wisdom about how families work and don't work are as reliable as her wry humor, and we often get both together…. This impossibly endearing and clever novel sets off a depth charge of emotion and meaning.
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 GRAMMARIANS … then take off on your own:
1. At the heart of this novel is the question of the self —how does each twin determine where her sister's identity ends and her own begins? Are they their own person or merely part of the other? What are their parents thoughts? What do you think: how would you answer those questions if the twins were to ask you?
2. Consider that the girls' names come from an anciet Greek myth in which Daphne, chased by Apollo, is transformed into the laurel tree. What is the symbolic significance that Cathleen Schine seems to be playing with by giving the twins those names?
3. Talk about the twins' earlier years, as youngsters: in what ways are they are alike, and in what ways are they different? When do their differences begin to appear?
4. The word twin is a Janus word, a single word that has opposite meanings. What are those meanings and how do those opposing definitions of "twin" apply to Daphne and Laurel?
5. The two are word lovers, but as adults they find themselves on opposing sides language. Talk about how each sees the use, rules, and boundaries of language. Is one approach more legitimate than the other? Whose side do you take in this argument?
6. Aside from language, describe the divisiveness between the two sisters as adults. Talk about the different paths their lives has taken. Do you admire one, or relate to one, more than the other?
7. (Follow-up to Question 5) Talk about your own relationship to language--how you use it and your appreciation of it. Do you treasure words in general...or particular words specifically? Think about the ways language can both unite us and separate us.
8. The present time of the novel takes place during the 1980s. If you lived through that era, does it feel familiar? Does Schine portray the time as you remember it? Why might the author have chosen the '80s as her setting?
9. Schine is clearly having her own fun with language. She heads each chapter with an unusual, even obsolete, word. In what way so the words relate to their chapters?
10. Do you know any identical twins or paternal twins who look nearly identical? If so, have they shared stories with you of what it's like to be a twin? Or, perhaps, you are a twin. Are you willing to share your experiences with your discussion group?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Animators
Kayla Rae Whitaker, 2017
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812989281
Summary
She was the first person to see me as I had always wanted to be seen. It was enough to indebt me to her forever.
In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of the party.
Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing. Drawing: Mel, to understand her tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether.
Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature, which transforms Mel’s difficult childhood into a provocative and visually daring work of art. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big.
But with their success come doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership.
Sharon begins to feel expendable, suspecting that the ever-more raucous Mel is the real artist. During a trip to Sharon’s home state of Kentucky, the only other partner she has ever truly known—her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy—reenters her life, and long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.
A funny, heartbreaking novel of friendship, art, and trauma, The Animators is about the secrets we keep and the burdens we shed on the road to adulthood. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1983-84
• Where—Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Kentucky; M.F.A., New York University
• Currently—lives in Louisville, Kentucky
Kayla Rae Whitaker’s work has appeared in Buzzfeed, Literary Hub, Split Lip Magazine, Bodega, Joyland, Five Quarterly, American Microreviews and Interviews, and others.
She has a BA from the University of Kentucky and an MFA from New York University. After many years of living in Brooklyn, she returned to Kentucky, her home state, in 2016 with her husband and their geriatric tomcat, Breece D’J Pancake. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Unusual and appealing.… The Animators covers familiar debut-novel territory: the search for identity, the desire for success, the bewildering experiences of small-town misfits leaving home for the bright lights of New York City. But Whitaker turns these motifs on their heads simply by changing the direction of the road and populating it with women.
Glynnis MacNicol - New York Times Book Review
Well-wrought and evocative.… [Mel and Sharon’s] partnership, which is at once fervent and wonderfully unsentimental, gives The Animators its soul.
Washington Post
Memorable, sure-handed, and absorbing.
Boston Globe
This novel is the holy grail; it’s the rare novel that explores and examines the deep friendship and professional lives of two women [and] keeps that focus.
Baltimore Sun
Difficult to forget long after finishing the last few pages.… [This breakout novel] fills a literary gap, which has been waiting for a tale of millennial female friendship and love without tacky genre borders or stereotypes.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Animators is inspiring in its freshness and its authenticity, one of the most original and raw books I’ve read in a long time. I look forward to more Whitaker novels to add to my library.
Dallas Morning News
Abiding friendships…are rarely portrayed with such nuance and humor as in this first novel, a nimble comedic turn edged with shadow.
Oprah Magazine
Suffused with humor, tragedy and deep insights about art and friendship.
People
[A] stunning debut.
Variety
A compulsively readable portrait of women as incandescent artists and intimate collaborators.
Elle
Whitaker’s vivid debut traces the lives of friends who bond over their rural Southern upbringings, then become an avant-garde animation duo with a cult following and uncomfortable fame.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review.) [O]utstanding.… Whitaker skillfully charts the creative process, its lulls and sudden rushes of perfect inspiration.… [S]he has created something wonderful and exceptional: a rich, deep, and emotionally true connection that will certainly steal the hearts of readers.
Publishers Weekly
In this fine first novel, Whitaker captures the human frailties that beset everyone—jealousy, anger, insecurity, trauma, the search for love—and weaves them into a compelling story of friendship, self-destruction, and salvation. —Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal
Visceral…utterly compelling…with the nonstop tension of a soap opera.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Unexpected and nuanced and pulsing with life, Whitakers debut cuts straight to the heart …with such precision and sharpness that its hard to let [her characters] go. Empathetic but never sentimental; a book that creeps up on you and then swallows you whole.
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 Animators...then take off on your own:
1. In what way do Mel and Sharon feel like outsiders at Ballister? What role does their sense of being different play in bringing the two together? How has each of their lives left them unprepared to face the environment at Ballister?
2. Sharon says of Mel in the very first chapter: "She was the first person to see me as I had always wanted to be seen. It was enough to indebt me to her forever."
- What does Mel see in Sharon?
- Does "what" Mel see in Sharon remain the same during the course of the novel—or change?
- What does Sharon see in Mel?
- Have you ever had a friend who truly saw into the center of you?
3. Describe Sharon's and Mel's personalities. How do they differ from one another, and how do their differences play out during the novel?
4. How do each of them conceptualize or understand art? Do they view art in the same way?
5. Author Kayla Rae Whitaker says that in her own life she was obsessed with cartoons—like her characters in The Animators. In an interview, she told The Guardian, "I am drawn to stories where children make dark discoveries about human nature." Shen went on to say,
My book is about the process of witnessing that darkness before you have the words to describe what you see and what you feel. Where do people pick up their shadows? And I think cartoons so often can tread on those shadows, without ever falling on top of them.
How do you see that role for cartoons—revealing to children the darker parts of humanity without causing trauma—play out in Whitaker's novel? Is the role beneficial? By the way, that concept was proposed in 1976 for children's fairy tales in Bruno Bettelheim's now classic, The Uses of Enchantment.
6. Talk about Teddy's role in Sharon's childhood and, now, her adult life. Why is he featured so prominently on her list (and why does Sharon keep the list from Mel)? Why is Teddy distressed about his role in Sharon's film?
7. What are the cracks that begin to widen in Sharon and Mel's relationship?
8. What propels Mel's downward trajectory?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Carnegie's Maid
Marie Benedict, 2018
Sourcebooks
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781492646617
Summary
From the author of The Other Einstein, the mesmerizing tale of what kind of woman could have inspired an American dynasty.
Clara Kelley is not who they think she is.
She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home.
If she can keep up the ruse, that is. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie requires skills she doesn't have, answering to an icy mistress who rules her sons and her domain with an iron fist.
What Clara does have is a resolve as strong as the steel Pittsburgh is becoming famous for, coupled with an uncanny understanding of business, and Andrew begins to rely on her. But Clara can't let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer. Revealing her past might ruin her future -- and her family's.
With captivating insight and heart, Carnegie's Maid tells the story of one brilliant woman who may have spurred Andrew Carnegie's transformation from ruthless industrialist into the world's first true philanthropist. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Marie Benedict, AKA Heather Terrell, writes both adult and young adult fiction. She is perhaps best known as Marie Benedict for her works of historical fiction: The Only Woman in the Room (2019), Carnegie's Maid (2018), and The Other Einstein (2016).
As Heather Terrell, she has written Brigid of Kildare (2010, based on the medieval life of Ireland's St. Brigid) and two suspense novels, The Map Thief (2008) and The Chrysalis (2007).
Her young adult books are also under Heather Terrell: the Books of Eva series (Relic, Boundary, and Chronicle), as well as the Fallen Angel series (Fallen Angel and Eternity).
Benedict/Terrill has been drawn to stories of strong women, especially unsung heroines, both real and fictional. A book lover from childhood, it was a gift from her aunt that sparked her imagination—Marion Zimmerman Bradley's tale about the women of the Arthurian legend, The Mists of Avalon. As she told Book Reporter:
This book opened my eyes to the hidden voices and truths lurking in history and legend—particularly the buried histories of women—and set me on an admittedly circuitous path toward a life of uncovering those unknown stories and memorializing them through fiction.
Before becoming an author Benedict/Terrill practiced law in New York City. She received her B.A. from Boston College and her J.D. from Boston University. She met her husband in 2002 while standing in the customs line after landing in Hong Kong. The two were married in 2002 and have since moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they live with their children. (Adapted from various online sources.)
Book Reviews
[An] excellent historical novel.… While there are elements of Cinderella, Benedict doesn’t let herself or her characters stray from historical realities. The true reason for Carnegie’s transformation from industrialist to builder of libraries for all remains a mystery, but Benedict’s imagination supplies a delightful possibility.
Publishers Weekly
With its well-drawn characters, good pacing, and excellent sense of time and place, this volume should charm lovers of historicals, romance, and the Civil War period. Neither saccharine nor overly dramatized, it's a very satisfying read. —Pamela O'Sullivan, Coll. at Brockport Lib., SUNY
Library Journal
[E]ngaging. The chaste romance will draw readers of inspirational fiction, while the novel is constructed to appeal to those seeking a tale with an upstairs-downstairs dynamic and all-but-invisible female characters who are either the impetus for or the actual originators of great men's great ideas.
Booklist
[I]maginative…. Benedict evokes the time period through her graceful writing style, which can seem stiff at first but soon immerses readers in "Downton Abbey"-esque drama. With meticulous historical detail, the luxury of the Carnegies' world is juxtaposed with the destitution of the poor,
Book Page
Discussion Questions
1. Carnegie’s Maid opens with Clara Kelly’s experience emigrating to America from Ireland in the 1860s. Do any aspects of Clara’s immigration surprise you, such as the ship voyage or the arrival inspection? If you were in Clara’s shoes, how would you feel going through the immigration process? Does Clara’s experience mirror that of you or someone in your own family?
2. How does Clara’s identity as an Irish Catholic immigrant affect her in America? If immigrating today, what similar or different challenges would Clara face?
3. Andrew Carnegie’s history has been described as the greatest rags to riches American story, and in some ways, Clara’s story mirrors his. Did you find her rise—though not as meteoric as Andrews’s due to gender constrictions—believable? If not, would you find it more believable if she’d been a man? If the story was set in today’s world, how would Andrew and Clara’s stories change? Would Clara still face the same challenges?
4. Compare and contrast Andrew and Clara. How are they similar? How are they different? Who do you relate to more?
5. While Clara inhabits and works in a traditional nineteenth century women’s realm, she aspires to achievements that would have been perceived as exclusively male. Discuss the spheres available to women at that time and the ways both Clara and Margaret Carnegie operated outside those spheres. Did anything about their allotted domains surprise you? What do you think about the capacity for change in the women’s realm? Do you think there is still an opportunity and need for change today?
6. The novel takes place in a unique moment in American history—just as the Civil War ends and the Gilded Age begins, showcasing a world on the cusp of tremendous change industrially, politically, economically and socially. How does this historical setting affect the characters? What role, if any, does it play in shaping their lives? Does it provide them with opportunities they would not otherwise have?
7. What is something you learned about this time period or Andrew Carnegie that fascinated you? If you could live during the Gilded Age, would you? What would your life be like?
8. Commitment and duty to her family in Ireland influence Clara tremendously. How does this sense of duty motivate her decisions and actions? How does it affect her ability to stay on the path she’s carved for herself? Is Andrew prompted by the same responsibilities, or does he have different drives? If you were in Clara’s shoes, what would drive you forward?
9. Andrew and Clara’s master and servant relationship changes during the course of the book. How does this evolution happen? What do you think it was that drew them together? Do you think their relationship could have lasted longer under different circumstances? How did you feel about the outcome of their relationship?
10. The title of the novel is subject to several interpretations. What meanings can you glean from the title, and how did your understanding of the meaning of Carnegie’s Maid change from the beginning to the end of the novel, if at all?
11. Andrew Carnegie is a well-known industrialist, who was the richest man in the world in his day and the founder of modern philanthropy. What was your understanding of him before you read this novel, and how did your understanding change, if it all? Did you know about his philanthropy and role in the formation of the modern library system? If you had the fortune of Carnegie, what cause would you devote yourself to?
12. While the world of Carnegie’s Maid is grounded in facts, Clara Kelly herself is a fictional character, although her immigrant experience and her lady’s maid role are founded upon historical research. Would the story be different for you if Clara was entirely non-fiction?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Everything, Everything
Nicola Yoon, 2015
Random House Children's
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553496673
Summary
Now a major motion picture starring Amandla Stenberg as Maddy and Nick Robinson as Olly.
Risk everything . . . for love.
What if you couldn’t touch anything in the outside world? Never breathe in the fresh air, feel the sun warm your face…or kiss the boy next door?
In Everything, Everything, Maddy is a girl who’s literally allergic to the outside world, and Olly is the boy who moves in next door…and becomes the greatest risk she’s ever taken.
My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in seventeen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla.
But then one day, a moving truck arrives next door. I look out my window, and I see him. He's tall, lean and wearing all black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly.
Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.
Everything, Everything will make you laugh, cry, and feel everything in between. It's an innovative, inspiring, and heartbreakingly romantic debut novel that unfolds via vignettes, diary entries, illustrations, and more. (From the publisher.)
The novel was adapted to film in 2017 and stars Amandla Stenberg as Maddy and Nick Robinson as Olly.
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Jamaica
• Raised—Jamaica; Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Emerson College
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Nicola Yoon is the New York Times bestselling author of the young adult books Everything, Everything (2015) and The Sun Is Also a Star (2016). She grew up in Jamaica (the island) and Brooklyn (on Long Island).
Yoon's path to writing was a roundabout one. As a child, she loved to write, starting when she was 8 or 9, yet by high school, she'd become a math nerd, and in college she majored in electrical engineering. It wasn't until her senior college year, when she took a creative writing class, that she rediscovered her love of writing.
Nonetheless, Yoon went on to become a financial data programmer for investment firms. She worked in that field for several years and then decided to enroll in a creative writing program at Emerson College, where she earned an M.F.A. Still, she worked for another 20-some years—while writing on the side—before getting her first book deal.
That first book was Everything, Everything—a bestseller, a "best book of the year" on many lists, and a 2017 motion picture. Yoon says her inspiration came with the birth of her daughter after which she worried obsessively about her child's safety. Anything, she said, would make her frantic. Then she began to imagine a child whose life truly was threatened by the world, for ever, simply by being in it. How would an overly protective mother respond to those threats, and what shape would the mother-daughter relationship take?
That germ of an idea grew into Everything Everything, which was released in 2015. Yoon's husband, by the way, provided the artwork for the book. Her debut was followed by The Sun Is Also a Star in 2016, which has also been widely praised.
Yoon lives in Los Angeles, California, with her family. She’s also a hopeless romantic who firmly believes that you can fall in love in an instant and that it can last forever. (Adapted from the publisher and various online sources.)
Book Reviews
[G]orgeous and lyrical.… [W]ith offbeat, pragmatic and sweetly romantic characters and an unconventional narrative style—the text is punctuated with medical charts, kissing primers, and other illustrations from Yoon's husband, David Yoon—Everything, Everything tells us something we will always need to hear, no matter our age: that it's not the risks of love or heartbreak that might end us. It's the fear of the pain we might experience along the way that keeps us trapped in our cocoons—or our white, decontaminated houses.
Whitney Joiner - New York Times Book Review
It’s tempting to drop everything everything once you’ve begun…[and] hard not to be consumed by this tale of doomed love.
Times (UK)
Not only was I totally hooked…by the end I was totally blown away.
Arun Rath - NPR
A vibrant, thrilling, and, ultimately, wholly original tale that's bound to be an instant hit.
Bustle.com
The main conflict is resolved in a few brief pages and reflects an overall tendency for things to happen a bit too easily. Even so, this is an easy romance to get caught up in (Ages 12–up).
Publishers Weekly
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 Everything, Everything …then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe Maddy's character? Despite her drastic isolation, she seems incredibly well grounded. How do you account for that? Carla tells Maddy that "you're the strongest, bravest person I know." Do you agree? In what sense is Maddy brave?
2. How would you cope if you were in Maddy's situation? Or if you were a mother of a child with SCID?
3. At one point, Maddy tells her mother, "I am not lonely I am alone. Those things are different." What does she mean? And do agree with her distinction between alone and loneliness?
4. Talk about the role that technology plays in Maddy's life. How does it connect her to the outside? How does it connect her with Olly, and how does it allow their relationship to develop?
5. How is Olly different from Maddy in terms of personality? What draws him to Maddy? In what way do the two serve as foils for each other: in other words, how does one highlight (almost in opposition) the character traits of the other?
6. Risking for love is a major theme of this story. Is love worth risking everything for? What do you think? Nearly everyone in this book risks something—what does each risk? When is risk worthwhile, and when is it irresponsible ...and how you can know which it is?
7. What do you think of Carla and the actions she takes in the novel? At one point, she tells Maddy that "doomed love is a part of life." Do you think she is being glib...or wise here?
8. Finally, talk about Madeline's mother. Oh, boy. What do you predict for the future of their relationship? What would you like to see happen?
9. This book asks the question, can you love someone too much? If you do, is it love?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)