The Essex Serpent
Sarah Perry, 2016 (2017, U.S.)
HarperCollins
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062666376
Summary
An exquisitely talented young British author makes her American debut with this rapturously acclaimed historical novel, set in late nineteenth-century England, about an intellectually minded young widow, a pious vicar, and a rumored mythical serpent.
When Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one.
Wed at nineteen, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend.
While admiring the sites, Cora learns of an intriguing rumor that has arisen further up the estuary, of a fearsome creature said to roam the marshes claiming human lives. After nearly 300 years, the mythical Essex Serpent is said to have returned, taking the life of a young man on New Year’s Eve.
A keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, Cora is immediately enthralled, and certain that what the local people think is a magical sea beast may be a previously undiscovered species. Eager to investigate, she is introduced to local vicar William Ransome. Will, too, is suspicious of the rumors. But unlike Cora, this man of faith is convinced the rumors are caused by moral panic, a flight from true belief.
These seeming opposites who agree on nothing soon find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart—an intense relationship that will change both of their lives in ways entirely unexpected. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1979
• Where—Chelmsford, England, UK
• Education—Ph.D., Royal Holloway University
• Currently—lives in Norwich, England
Sarah Perry is an English author. She has had two novels published: The Essex Serpent (2016) and After Me Comes the Flood (2014). Perry was born in Chelmsford, Essex, into a family of devout Christians who were members of a Strict Baptist church.
Perry grew up with little, if any, access to contemporary art, culture, and writing. She filled her time with classical music, classic novels and poetry, and church-related activities. She says this early immersion in old literature and the King James Bible profoundly influenced her writing style.
She has a PhD in creative writing from Royal Holloway University where her supervisor was English novelist and poet, Sir Andrew Motion. Her doctoral thesis was on the Gothic in the writing of Iris Murdoch, and Perry has subsequently published an article on the Gothic in Aeon magazine.
I wrote about the power of place in my PhD thesis, particularly the importance of buildings in the Gothic (a genre which I find myself inhabiting without ever having meant to). Fiction in the Gothic inheritance makes much of the potent importance of the interior, from the castle where Jonathan Harker finds himself holed up to Thornfield, and from the suburban homes in Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black to the ghastly crypts in The Monk.
Recognition
Perry's second nove, The Essex Serpent, was nominated in the Novel category for the 2016 Costa Book Awards and was named Waterstones Book Of The Year 2016. It was placed on the long list for the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. In 2013 she was a writer in residence at Gladstone's Library. She won the 2004 Shiva Naipaul Memorial prize for travel writing for "A Little Unexpected," an article about her experiences in the Philippines. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/12/2017.)
Book Reviews
Sarah Perry ‘s exquisite novel evokes of the best of 19th-century fiction — descriptive power, lush imagery, and vivid characters, especially females. The spirits of Austen, Bronte, Dickens, Hardy, and Eliot are alive and well within its pages.… It was hard to close the cover of The Essex Serpent when I finished; I didn’t want — I don’t want — to leave its world of earthy smells and wonderful characters. Sarah Perry has written a breathtaking book (and won the British National Book Award for it), and I’m eager to see what comes next. READ MORE …
Molly Lundquist - LitLovers
Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent is a novel of almost insolent ambition — lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate. Set in the Victorian era, it's part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. It's wonderfully dense and serenely self-assured.
Jennifer Senior - New York Times Book Review
An irresistible new novel…the most delightful heroine since Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.… By the end, The Essex Serpent identifies a mystery far greater than some creature "from the illuminated margins of a manuscript": friendship.
Washington Post
Richly enjoyable.… Ms. Perry writes beautifully and sometimes agreeably sharply.… The Essex Serpent is a wonderfully satisfying novel. Ford Madox Ford thought the glory of the novel was its ability to make the reader think and feel at the same time. This one does just that.
Wall Street Journal
For originality, richness of prose and depth of characterization is unlikely to be bettered this year.… [O]ne of the most memorable historical novels of the past decade.
Sunday Times (UK)
Perry’s achieved the near impossible.…A thing of beauty inside and out …a stunning achievement.
Independent (UK)
Irresistible.… [Y]ou can feel the influences of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Hilary Mantel channeled by Perry in some sort of Victorian seance. This is the best new novel I’ve read in years.
Daily Telegraph (UK)
A Victorian-era gothic with a Dickensian focus on societal ills, Perry’s second novel surprises in its wonderful freshness.… [Her] singular characters are drawn with a fondness that is both palpable and contagious, all making for pure pleasure.
Observer (UK)
A suspenseful love story… The Essex Serpent recalls variously the earthiness of Emily Brontë, the arch, high-tensile tone of Conan Doyle, the evocation of time and place achieved by Hilary Mantel and Sarah Waters and the antiquarian edgelands horror of M. R. James.
New Statesman (UK)
Perry fully inhabits many of the concerns and stylistic elements of the 19th century novel — but its interests are still contemporary ones: desire, fulfillment and questioning the world… Her language is exquisite, her characterization finely tuned.… [I]t’s clear that Perry is a gifted writer of immense ability.
Irish Times
An exquisitely absorbing, old-fashioned page-turner.… The Essex Serpent is shot through with such a vivid, lively sense of the period that it reads like Charles Dickens at his most accessible and fans of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell will also find much to love.
Daily Express (UK)
[E]xcellent.… Like John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, whose Lyme Regis setting gets a shout-out here, this is another period literary pastiche with a contemporary overlay. Cora makes for a fiercely independent heroine around whom all the other characters orbit.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred Review.) The vivid, often frightening imagery …and the lush descriptions …create a magical background for the sensual love story between Sarah and Will. Book-discussion groups will have a field day with the imagery, the well-developed characters, and the concepts of innocence, evil, and guilt.
Booklist
(Starred Review.) [S]weeping 19th-century saga of competing belief systems.… The sumptuous twists and turns of Perry's prose invite close reading…. Stuffed with smarts and storytelling sorcery, this is a work of astonishing breadth and brilliance.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Many comparisons have been drawn between Sarah Perry’s writing and the Victorian novelists who were writing at the time the book was set, including Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Do you think this book feels Victorian, or contemporary?
2. "I'll fill your wounds with gold," Michael says. He means both literally that he will make sure Cora is financially comfortable during their marriage in exchange for the pleasure of hurting her, but also that he will remake her as something more beautiful and interesting than she was before. Cora survived her horrible marriage, but was definitely damaged by it. What do you think the seams of gold are in Cora’s character?
3. Many of the characters have unequal relationships: Cora and Martha, Spencer and Luke. Do you think that viewing someone as a means to an end necessarily precludes loving them?
4. Cora’s son, Francis, might today be diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. Despite his challenges, he gets a lot of pleasure from learning about the natural world. Eccentricity seems to have been more acceptable in the Victorian era, at least for men of a certain class. Do you think Francis would be happier in his time or in our own?
5. Will is at odds with the superstitious villagers, who insist the serpent is real, whereas he sees their conviction as a sign of their lack of faith. However, he is also wrangling with Cora, who is more interested in science than religious belief. And while Will is a minister of the established Church, he secretly reads Darwin. Do you think he believes faith is fundamentally rooted in the words of the Bible or a more personal encounter with the world?
6. When Francis asks Will what sin is, he describes it as falling short. When Will and Cora finally have their encounter in the woods, Will’s wife is still alive. How do you think Will would judge this incident by his own definition of sin?
7. Cora’s physical size and mannish habits of dress are frequently commented upon by other characters in the novel. She rejects a lot of society’s expectations of her as a woman, whereas Stella Ransome is the living embodiment of the perfect housewife. Despite their differences, they are friends. What do you think Perry is trying to tell us by having Cora save her rival instead of quietly letting her drown?
8. Cora sends her angry letter to Luke at a terrible time — it arrives as all his other hopes are being dashed. If this unfortunate coincidence hadn’t taken place, would we still read the letter as cruel? Should she have expressed her thoughts more kindly or was she right to be angry?
9. One of the subplots of the novel is the disappearance of Naomi Banks. She and Joanna Ransome argued and Naomi ran away. By the end of the novel, she has returned and Joanna is trying to cope with the imminent death of her mother. Do you think they will become close friends again, for good, or are the differences between them simply too great?
10. The novel sets up Cora to choose between two men and in the end she chooses neither. Do you think this is a comment on traditional literary plots? Do you think the novel sees friendship as more valuable and enduring than romantic love?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Women in Sunlight
Frances Mayes, 2018
Crown/Archetype
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451497666
Summary
By the bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun, and written with Frances Mayes’s trademark warmth, heart, and delicious descriptions of place, food, and friendship, Women in Sunlight is the story of four American strangers who bond in Italy and change their lives over the course of an exceptional year.
She watches from her terrazza as the three American women carry their luggage into the stone villa down the hill.
Who are they, and what brings them to this Tuscan village so far from home? An expat herself and with her own unfinished story, she can’t help but question: will they find what they came for?
Kit Raine, an American writer living in Tuscany, is working on a biography of her close friend, a complex woman who continues to cast a shadow on Kit’s own life. Her work is waylaid by the arrival of three women—Julia, Camille, and Susan—all of whom have launched a recent and spontaneous friendship that will uproot them completely and redirect their lives.
Susan, the most adventurous of the three, has enticed them to subvert expectations of staid retirement by taking a lease on a big, beautiful house in Tuscany. Though novices in a foreign culture, their renewed sense of adventure imbues each of them with a bright sense of bravery, a gusto for life, and a fierce determination to thrive.
But how?
With Kit’s friendship and guidance, the three friends launch themselves into Italian life, pursuing passions long-forgotten—and with drastic and unforeseeable results.
(From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1940
• Where—Fitzgerald, Georgia, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Florida; M.A., San Francisco
State University;
• Currently—lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and Corona, Italy
Frances Mayes is the author of several books about Tuscany. The now-classic Under the Tuscan Sun–which was a New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years and became a Touchstone movie starring Diane Lane. It was followed by Bella Tuscany and two illustrated books, In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home. She is also the author of the novel, Swan, six books of poetry, The Discovery of Poetry, and her most recent, Under Magnolia: A Southern Memoir (2014). Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages (From the publisher.)
More
Frances Mayes is an American university professor, poet, memoirist, essayist, and novelist. Born in Fitzgerald, Georgia, and raised in south central Georgia, Mayes attended Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and obtained her BA from the University of Florida. In 1975 she earned her MA from San Francisco State University, where she eventually became Professor of Creative Writing, director of The Poetry Center, and chair tof the Department of Creative Writing.
Mayes has published several works of poetry: Climbing Aconcagua (1977), Sunday in Another Country (1977), After Such Pleasures (1979), The Arts of Fire (1982), Hours (1984), and Ex Voto (1995). In 1996 she published the book Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy. The book is a memoir of Mayes buying, renovating, and living in an abandoned villa in rural Cortona in Tuscany, a region of Italy. It went to Number One on the New York Times Best Seller list and remained on the list for over two years.
In 2003 the film Under the Tuscan Sun was released. Adapted to the screen by director Audrey Wells, the movie was loosely based on Mayes's book. In 1999, Mayes followed this literary success with another international bestseller, Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy, and in 2000 with In Tuscany. Mayes's first novel, Swan, was published in 2002. Her memoir, Under Magnolia, about growing up in a Southern family, came out in 2014,
Also a food-and-travel writer, Mayes is the editor of The Best American Travel Writing 2002 and the author of A Year in the World: Journeys of A Passionate Traveller (2006), tales of her and her husband's travels.
Now writing full time, she and her poet husband divide their time between homes in Hillsborough, North Carolina and Cortona, Italy, where she serves as the artist director of the annual Tuscan Sun Festival. (From Wikipedia. Updated 2/21/2014.)
Book Reviews
Even fans of Mayes’s Under the Tuscan Sun may have trouble with her latest, a trifle about three American women who impulsively rent a house in Tuscany for a year.… [F]eels like a movie, but not an especially memorable one.
Publishers Weekly
Fans will be delighted that Mayes again puts them Under the Tuscan Sun, where American writer Kit Raine is now living…. Sun and fun, food and friendship—you can’t go wrong.
Library Journal
The pleasurable descriptions of colors and tastes and various Italian tourist destinations, plus… the handmade paper made by the paper-making character, etc., are enough to keep this party going all year long.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The ingredients, cooking, and eating of food are prominent features of Women in Sunlight. What did you take the descriptions of food to represent? For instance, what is the importance of hospitality and the sharing of meals, and do you see a connection between cooking and other forms of creativity?
2. At Susan’s beach house, she and her two new friends, Camille and Julia, discuss the expectation that life should "simplify" with age. Resisting this, they move to Tuscany "where life does not simplify, it complicates" (p. 51). Do you think this vision of Italy is correct? In what ways do their lives become more complex? Does life, in fact, simplify in other ways?
3. Susan references a theory that, in dreams, houses and their rooms represent the parts of one’s self. Do you think that the spaces the women occupy reflect the current states of their hearts and minds? How might Villa Assunta in Tuscany speak differently than their houses in America or the living units at Cornwallis Meadows?
4. Consider the following passage: "Why, they wonder after family life ended, didn’t more people banish loneliness and live together? Things, they conclude. People can’t part with their stuff, their mother’s stuff, attics and basements full of stuff" (p. 91). How do the women deal with the emotional weight of their things and the history they carry? What might be the importance of learning to "let go" of material possessions?
5. What were your first impressions of Susan, Camille, and Julia? What contrasting personality traits do they have, and how might they influence or inspire one another? How are they each stimulated and transformed by life in Italy?
6. What is Margaret’s purpose in the narrative? How might her relationship with Kit compare to the friendships among the other women?
7. As the women transition to life in Europe, what are the divergences from life in America? Did you notice any cultural gaps between the American women and the Italian locals?
8. Why do you think Julia considers the women innocent when they first arrive in Tuscany? Is this a trait that inevitably comes with traveling to new places? In what moments could you see them lose aspects of this innocence?
9. Julia channels her culinary passion and publishing experience into writing Learning Italian, which chronicles her journey of cooking the country’s food and learning its language. Could you read Women in Sunlight as, like Julia’s project becomes, a newcomer’s guide to life in Italy?
10. Thinking back on her time in Boulder, Kit remarks that "[t]hough I loved the town, it was not my place in the universe." What, in your view, determines one’s place in the universe? Why is it that we are compelled to return to some places and not others?
11. How might Women in Sunlight challenge definitions of "home," or of the family as a nuclear unit? Are we readers encouraged to be more flexible in our understandings of these concepts? Do you find the idea of communal living practiced in Women in Sunlight appealing?
12. What did you make of Julia’s tenuous relationship with her daughter, Lizzie, and Wade, her estranged husband? How do you think you would react if placed in Julia’s position?
13. As she reconnects with her artistic flair, how does Camille learn to grapple with grief and the death of her husband? What were your interpretations of her "paper doors"?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Boy Swallows Universe
Trent Dalton, 2019
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062898104
Summary
An utterly wonderful debut novel of love, crime, magic, fate and a boy’s coming of age, set in 1980s Australia and infused with the originality, charm, pathos, and heart of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Eli Bell’s life is complicated. His father is lost, his mother is in jail, and his stepdad is a heroin dealer.
The most steadfast adult in Eli’s life is Slim—a notorious felon and national record-holder for successful prison escapes—who watches over Eli and August, his silent genius of an older brother.
Exiled far from the rest of the world in Darra, a neglected suburb populated by Polish and Vietnamese refugees, this twelve-year-old boy with an old soul and an adult mind is just trying to follow his heart, learn what it takes to be a good man, and train for a glamorous career in journalism.
Life, however, insists on throwing obstacles in Eli’s path—most notably Tytus Broz, Brisbane’s legendary drug dealer.
But the real trouble lies ahead. Eli is about to fall in love, face off against truly bad guys, and fight to save his mother from a certain doom—all before starting high school.
A story of brotherhood, true love, family, and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe is the tale of an adolescent boy on the cusp of discovering the man he will be. Powerful and kinetic, Trent Dalton’s debut is sure to be one of the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novels you will experience. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1978-79
• Raised—outside Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
• Education—N/A
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Brisbane
Trent Dalton is an award-winning journalist at The Weekend Australian Magazine. His writing includes several short and feature-length film screenplays. In 2019 he published, Boy Swallows Universe, his debut novel, closely based on his own childhood.
He was nominated for a 2010 AFI Best Short Fiction screenplay award for his latest film, Glenn Owen Dodds, which also won the prestigious International Prix Canal award at the world's largest short film festival, the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.
Dalton's debut feature film screenplay, In the Silence, is currently in production. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Boy Swallows Universe hypnotizes you with wonder, and then hammers you with heartbreak.… Eli’s remarkably poetic voice and his astonishingly open heart take the day. They enable him to carve out the best of what’s possible from the worst of what is, which is the miracle that makes this novel marvelous.
Washington Post
A splashy, profane, and witty debut.
USA Today
Welcome to the weird and wonderful universe of Trent Dalton, whose first work of fiction is, without exaggeration, the best Australian novel I have read in more than a decade.… The last 100 pages of Boy Swallows Universe propel you like an express train to a conclusion that is profound and complex and unashamedly commercial.… The book is jam-packed with such witty and profound insights into what’s wrong and what’s right with Australia and the world.… I read it in two sittings and immediately want to read it again. In its deft integration of the sacred and the profane, of high ideals and low villainy, it somehow reminded me of a favorite French movie, Diva. A rollicking ride, rich in philosophy, wit, truth and pathos.
Sydney Morning Herald
It is such a pleasant shock to encounter a new Australian novel in which joy is shamelessly deployed.… It is a story in thrall to the potential the world holds for lightness, laughter, beauty, forgiveness, redemption, and love.… [Dalton] invests this unlikely cast and milieu with considerable energy, wit and charm. He delights in the play of language and imagination that a child can summon: the sense in which the clear moral eye of youth can critique and adore simultaneously without judgment or adult moral finessing.
The Australian
A wonderful surprise: sharp as a drawer full of knives in terms of subject matter; unrepentantly joyous in its child’s-eye view of the world; the best literary debut in a month of Sundays.
Weekend Australian
(Starred review) [A] splashy, stellar debut makes the typical coming-of-age novel look bland by comparison.… Dalton’s… observant eye [and] ability to temper pathos with humor… prevent the novel from breaking into sparkling pieces.… [O]utstanding.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) A marvelously plot-rich novel, which…is filled with beautifully lyric prose…. Exceptional
Booklist
[M]agical elements promised in the novel’s early pages,… either get abandoned or turn out to be relatively pedantic matters of interpretation. A likable debut that trades its early high-flown ambitions for dramatic but familiar coming-of-age fare.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Slim’s view of the world is that: "We all got a bit o' good and a bit o' bad in us…." Discuss the ways in which characters in the novel are both good and bad at the same time.
2. What do you think is the meaning of the red telephone and the mysterious voice that speaks to Eli?
3. Do good life lessons remain valid if delivered by evil men?
4. What sort of man do you hope (or fear) Eli Bell will grow into?
5. What do you think, ultimately, Eli Bell is searching for in life and in that secret room?
6. Why do you think August chooses to be mute?
7. Does the knowledge that much of this novel is based on Trent Dalton’s own life change your reading of the book? Enhance it? Or does it not make a difference?
8. Do you think the trauma that Mrs Birbeck talks about (p. 224) is a factor in Eli’s journey?
9. Do you think the novel is optimistic or pessimistic about the world?
10. Were there similarities or differences in the book to your own memories of 1980s suburban Australia?
11. Discuss the idea that August may have knowledge of future events and how this is suggested and also at times debunked.
12. "Do your time before it does you," says Slim. What does Eli take this to mean and how does he act on it?
13. The novel presents an interesting view of adults from a child’s perspective. What does it say about adults and particularly adult men? And what does Eli learn from this?
(Questions issued by the publisher in Australia.)
Green Island
Shawna Yang Ryan, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101874257
Summary
A stunning story of love, betrayal, and family, set against the backdrop of a changing Taiwan over the course of the 20th century.
February 28, 1947
Trapped inside the family home amid an uprising that has rocked Taipei, Dr. Tsai delivers his youngest daughter, the unnamed narrator of Green Island, just after midnight as the city is plunged into martial law.
In the following weeks, as the Chinese Nationalists act to crush the opposition, Dr. Tsai becomes one of the many thousands of people dragged away from their families and thrown into prison. His return, after more than a decade, is marked by alienation from his loved ones and paranoia among his community—conflicts that loom over the growing bond he forms with his youngest daughter.
Years later, this troubled past follows her to the United States, where, as a mother and a wife, she too is forced to decide between what is right and what might save her family—the same choice she witnessed her father make many years before.
As the novel sweeps across six decades and two continents, the life of the narrator shadows the course of Taiwan’s history from the end of Japanese colonial rule to the decades under martial law and, finally, to Taiwan’s transformation into a democracy.
But, above all, Green Island is a lush and lyrical story of a family and a nation grappling with the nuances of complicity and survival, raising the question: how far would you be willing to go for the ones you love? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1976
• Where—Sacramento, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California (UCLA), Berkeley; M.A., UCLA, Davis
• Awards—Elliot Cades Emerging Writer Award
• Currently—lives in Honolulu, Hawaii
Shawna Yang Ryan is a Taiwanese American novelist, short story writer, and creative writing professor, who currently teaches at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. She is the author of two novels: Water Ghosts (2009) and Green Island (2016).
Ryan was born in Sacramento, California, to parents who met during the Vietnam War: her mother was born in Taiwan and the daughter of Chinese immigrants who fled the mainland in 1949 with Chiang Kai-shek. Her Caucasian father was born in Berlin, Germany, and grew up all around Europe and America, eventually meeting her mother while stationed in Taiwan.
She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her B.A., and the University of California, Davis, where she received her M.A. in Creative Writing. She was also a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan during 2002. Ryan currently lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Stories
In addition to two novels, Ryan's short stories have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Swill Magazine, Asian American Literary Review, Kartika Review, and Berkeley Fiction Review. Her short story "Marginalia," published in the Fall 2013 issue of Asian American Literary Review was nominated for a Pushcart Prize that year.
Accolades
In 2015, Ryan received the Elliot Cades Emerging Writer Award from the Hawai'i Literary Arts Council. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/29/2016.)
Book Reviews
Gripping: a triumph of sustained focus on unusually thorny material.... But Green Island is much more than a historical novel. It’s also a family epic.
Claire Hopley - Washington Times
Ryan paints a chilling, convincing picture of Taiwan [that] stands as a tribute to the flawed survivors of [its] history.
Steph Cha - Los Angeles Times
An intricate, gracefully told tale that blends war history, suspense and a woman’s coming-of-age and beyond.... The pages bloom with description, with a photolike sense of place.... And throughout Green Island is an aching sense of the idea of home.
Moira Macdonald - Seattle Times
Remarkably compelling.... As much a gripping narrative of an evolving Taiwan as an exquisitely crafted story of one family’s devotion and compromises.
Janine Oshiro - Honolulu Star Advertiser
A sweeping story, as epic in scope as the story is intimate.
Barbara VanDenburgh - Arizona Republic
(Starred review.) [An] engrossing epic.... Absorbing and affecting, this powerful tale explores the bond between a father and daughter, the compromises they are forced to make, and the prices they pay in their quest for freedom. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist
An epic political novel focusing on post-World War II dissidents in Taiwan and especially on its repressive government.... The narrative works movingly on many different levels but especially on the personal and the political.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think that the author chose "Green Island" as the title of her book? How might it suggest or otherwise echo some of the major themes of the novel?
2. Who narrates Green Island? Why do you think that the author chose to never name her? How does the narrator become privy to the information and stories that she shares? Do you think that she is a reliable narrator? Why or why not?
3. Why is Dr. Tsai taken away? What is he accused of? How does he react to this charge? How do the other three men with him react to what they are charged with? How does Dr. Tsai’s imprisonment change him? What feelings does his wife have upon his return and in the time after? Is her response to his return surprising?
4. In Chapter 4, what does the narrator say is Baba’s flaw? Are there any other characters who seem to share this same flaw? Explain.
5. Evaluate the role of women in the story. What rights do the women have and what is their place in society? What does it mean to be a wife and mother? What restrictions are placed upon them as a result of their being women? How does the female experience seem to differ for the younger generations of women represented in the book?
6. Consider the themes of ethics and morality. Do you believe that Dr. Tsai and his daughter made the right choices in the major decisions they faced? Did they have any other choice? What motivated their decisions to do what they did? How did their choices ultimately impact their lives and the lives of others? What does this suggest about ethics and morality? Is there always a right and wrong choice?
7. Evaluate the motif of superstition in the book. What are some of the examples of superstitious rituals or beliefs practiced by the characters? Why do the characters seem to maintain these beliefs or perform these rituals?
8. What role does faith play in the novel? In what ways do the characters find faith? What causes their faith to waiver? Why do Ah Zhay and her mother turn to the church? Other than religious faith, what other kinds of faith are depicted in the book?
9. Consider examples of loyalty and betrayal in the book. To whom are the characters loyal? Conversely, what are some examples of betrayal found in the book? Who are some of the perpetrators and what causes them to betray someone else? Do they confess their betrayal or infidelity? If so, are they forgiven? Do they forgive themselves? Does the book ultimately suggest where one’s primary loyalty should lie?
10. How are terms like "family," "citizen," and "home" defined within the novel? What do the three have in common? At the end of the book, what does the narrator say it means to be a citizen? Do you agree with her? Discuss.
11. What kinds of love are depicted in the book? Does one type of love seem to be stronger or more resilient than other kinds? Explain. How does the narrator’s view of marriage and love compare to her mother’s? How does the narrator’s definition of love change or else remain consistent over the course of the story?
12. What does the book suggest about the United States’ reaction to international tragedy? Do you agree? Why or why not? Likewise, how do the people of Taiwan respond to the tragedies happening within their own borders? What influences or else confines their responses and reactions?
13. Consider literature as a motif within in the novel. What examples of literature and literature as propaganda are contained therein? Which of the characters in the story are writers? Why does Jia Bao want to write a book? Why is it considered a danger? What does this suggest about the power of the written word?
14. How does freedom come to be defined within the novel? Would you say that the characters in the novel are free? Why or why not? According to the book, what determines whether or not one is free?
15. Consider some of the secrets kept by the characters in the novel. Why do they keep these secrets and what impact does their secret keeping have on themselves and those around them? Do you agree with their choices to keep secrets? In other words, are there some instances where it is best to keep secrets? Discuss.
16. In Chapter 50, what did the narrator mean when she said "the whole country existed in metaphor" (308)?
17. How does the narrator come to know her parents better over the course of their lives? How do her opinions change from those she held as a young girl living with them and what incites these changes? What do we learn about the parent-child relationship from the narrator’s relationship with her own children and the way that her children perceive her?
18. Some of the characters in the novel question the activism of their family members, as they believe it will threaten their safety. Do you feel that their activism was worthwhile, necessary even? Was their activism successful or futile? Explain.
19. Before the narrator leaves Taipei, she visits a few memorials. How does she seem to feel about these memorials? What does she mean when she says, "We have to remind ourselves to remember" (377)? Are memorials sufficient reminders?
20. At the conclusion of the book the narrator speaks of the experience of her family and says: "It was more than a story. It was like this, wasn’t it?" (381). What do you think she means by this?
21. The leaders of China and Taiwan recently had a formal meeting for the first time in sixty-six years, and it made major international news. Having read Green Island, why do you think this event was so momentous? How do you think the characters of the novel would react to it?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Summer Before the War
Helen Simonson, 2016
Random House
496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812993103
Summary
The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love on the eve of World War I that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set.
East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England’s brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful.
Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha’s husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won’t come to anything.
And Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master.
When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking—and attractive—than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing.
But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end.
For despite Agatha’s reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1964-65
• Where—England, UK
• Education—London School of Economics; M.F.A., State University of New York,
at Stony Brook
• Currently—lives in Washington, DC,
Helen Simonson is the author of two novels, The Last Stand of Major Pettigrew (2010) and The Summer Before the War (2016). Though living in America, Simonson was born and raised in England.
She grew up near Rye, a 14th century smuggling port from which the sea receded long ago. The town is now surrounded by marshland, the very place Charles Dickens' Pip, from Great Expectations, started off on his jouney to manhood. Rye is situated in East Sussex, a county of medieval villages, seaside towns, and high grassy bluffs known as the South Downs. Simonson considers it her ideal of home.
But over the past three decades Simonson has lived in the U.S.—first, as a long-time and proud resident of Brooklyn, New York, and more recently in the Washington D.C. area.
As a young woman, Simonson was eager to head to London for college and, later, to move across the pond to America. Yet she has always carried with her a deep longing for home. "I think this dichotomy—between the desire for home and the urge to leave—is of central interest to my life and my writing," she has said. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
If you’ve been wanting more Downton Abbey, this book is for you. Helen Simonson’s success with Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand continues with her second novel—this one peering into the insular English village of Rye. It is the summer before World War I, and the villagers, ruled over by Lady Marbely, are blissfully ignorant that their lives are about to change, irrevocably, as the world balances on the cusp of a long and brutal war. READ MORE.
Cara Kless - LitLovers
It is clear from the beginning who the favored characters are, and we can be assured they will end up satisfactorily. The book is prettily written, with charming descriptions and bits of historical detail.... [T]he Latin teacher and her admirer, who prizes her intellect above his ambition, are too self-aware. When they do a good deed, they probe themselves for hidden selfish motives. It is as if Jane Austen’s Emma had kept fretting that perhaps she should mind her own business. Rather than making characters sympathetic, this virtuous quirk prevents the reader from discovering the mild contradictions in human nature. And that is what we travel to social-comedy land to enjoy.
Judith Martin - New York Times Book Review
The Summer Before the War [like Simonson's Major Pettigrew] is also a delightful story about nontraditional romantic relationships, class snobbery and the everybody-knows-everybody complications of living in a small community. The novel’s amusing dialogue enlivens its compelling storyline.... [But d]espite the rib-tickling levity, though, this comedy of manners is also a serious novel about class cruelty on and off the battlefield.
Carol Memmott - Washington Post
[G]ender, class, and social mores...at the dawn of World War I.... Simonson’s writing is restrained but effective, especially when making quiet revelations. A heartbreaking but satisfying ending...about [class systems that] unfairly limit people and their potential.
Publishers Weekly
Simonson's episodic descriptions of life in Rye as the war looms...with a touch of romance. The book falters a bit when it switches away from Rye to cover life in the trenches, and the climax there feels a bit melodramatic, but Simonson's good-hearted, likable characters make up for these weaknesses —Mara Bandy, Champaign P.L., IL
Library Journal
A bright confection of a book morphs into a story of dignity and backbone....another comedy of manners nestled in a British village. This time [Simonson] deepens the gravitas and fattens the story, which begins on the cusp of World War I....beautifully plotted and morally astute.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. An important subject in The Summer Before the War is women’s lives: their role and limits, and how women work within and against Edwardian strictures. Do you think we can take any modern lessons from these women’s lives?
2. Beatrice and Celeste both idolize their fathers. However, are they both betrayed? Do all the characters place too much trust in father figures? Do you think this a useful metaphor for England as it goes to war?
3. Why do we love the Edwardian era so much? Is it the gentility and supposed innocence of the age? Does this attraction remain for you after reading The Summer Before the War?
4. The author presents two strong women in the characters of Beatrice Nash and Agatha Kent. How are they similar and different? Why do you think the author chose to present both voices?
5. Who is your favorite character and what draws you to him or her in particular? Whom do you dislike in the book, and does he or she have redeeming features?
6. The author has said she thinks the whole world can be explained in a small town. Did she succeed at that in this book? What do you think can or cannot be described and explained within such a setting?
7. Though The Summer Before the War is set in Edwardian En-gland, did you recognize elements of your own town, city, or -social circle in this novel? Could the good ladies and gentlemen of Rye only exist in England, or are such characters found everywhere?
8. Why are books about war so compelling? Do you agree with Beatrice that no writer can ever write about war in a way that will prevent it? Is it a valuable topic anyway?
9. Did The Summer Before the War change what you knew or how you thought of the First World War? How so?
(Questions issued by the pubisher).
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Summer Before the War…then take off on your own:i
1. Talk about the status of women's rights (or the lack of) during the setting of The Summer Before the War. What prejudices does Beatrice, as a woman, have to confront?
2. Comparisons of Simonson's book have been made to the television series Downton Abbey. What parallels do you see? Consider class and gender issues, as well as the effect of the war on the staid Edwardian sensibilities.
3. How would you describe Beatrice Nash? Why does Beatrice reject the idea of marriage?
4. Some of Simonson's dialogue is very funny. Find a few of the quips for fun...but also talk about the serious realities that underlie their surface humor. Consider, for example, this one about the arrival of Belgium refugees: "It is quite impossible to ask our ladies to take absolute peasants into their own houses, however charming their wooden clogs." Underneath its humor, what does it reveal about societal mores?
5. Talk about the incidents of cruelty, both on and off the battlefield. What might Simonson be hinting at when it comes to the cruelty of organized warfare vs. a "peaceful" village society engaged in rivalry for civic boards and pageants...or guns vs. sarcasm?
6. Describe the gruesome conditions and suffering in the battlefield trenches. How does the novel juxtapose that suffering with the naivete of the villagers back home?
7. Talk about how the rigid class attitudes were changed by the war. Hugh Grange, for instance, thinks that the "earthbound ruffians formed as indelible a part of England’s fabled backbone as any boys from Eton’s playing fields."
(This set of questions is by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)