The Distance Between Us
Reyna Grande, 2012
Simon & Schuster
325 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451661781
Summary
Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years in this compelling story of a childhood spent torn between two parents and two countries.
As her parents make the dangerous trek across the Mexican border to “El Otro Lado” (The Other Side) in pursuit of the American dream, Reyna and her siblings are forced into the already overburdened household of their stern grandmother. When their mother at last returns, Reyna prepares for her own journey to “El Otro Lado” to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years, her long-absent father.
Funny, heartbreaking, and lyrical, The Distance Between Us poignantly captures the confusion and contradictions of childhood, reminding us that the joys and sorrows we experience are imprinted on the heart forever, calling out to us of those places we first called home. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 7, 1975
• Where—Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico
• Education—B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz;
M.F.A., Antioch University
• Awards—Latino Books Into Movies Award; American
Book Award; El Premio Aztlan Literary Award;
International Latino Book Awards
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California, USA
Reyna Grande is a Mexican immigrant author best known for her award winning novel Across a Hundred Mountains (2006) which, though a work of fiction, draws heavily on Grande's experiences growing up in Mexico and her illegal immigration to the United States. Her second novel, Dancing with Butterflies (2009), also garnered critical acclaim and awards.
In 2012, Grande published her memoir, The Distance Between Us, a coming-of-age story based on her experiences as an undocumented immigrant. In a December 6, 2012 interview in by the Los Angeles Review of Books, Grande explained why she decided to part from fiction to tell her story:
Even though my novels are very personal, and the material I write about is drawn from my own experience, they are fictional stories. After I completed my second novel, I wanted to write the real story about my life, before and after illegally immigrating to the US from Mexico. I wanted to shed light on the complexities of immigration and how immigration affected my entire family in both positive and negative ways.
The memoir was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the autobiography category. (Adapted from Wikipedia and the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A brutally honest book…akin to being the Angela’s Ashes of the modern Mexican immigrant experience.
Los Angeles Times
The sadness at the heart of Grande’s story is unrelenting; this is the opposite of a light summer read. But that’s OK, because...this book should have a long shelf life.
Slate
A timely and a vivid example of how poverty and immigration can destroy a family.
Daily Beast
Award-winning novelist (Across a Hundred Mountains) Grande captivates and inspires in her memoir. Raised in Mexico in brutal poverty during the 1980s, four-year-old Grande and her two siblings lived with their cruel grandmother after both parents departed for the U.S. in search of work. Grande deftly evokes the searing sense of heartache and confusion created by their parents’ departure.... Tracing the complex and tattered relationships binding the family together, especially the bond she shared with her older sister, the author intimately probes her family’s history for clues to its disintegration. Recounting her story without self-pity, she gracefully chronicles the painful results of a family shattered by repeated separations and traumas.
Publishers Weekly
After writing two award-winning novels, Grande gets down to the nitty-gritty and chronicles her life as an undocumented immigrant, from her border crossing at age nine. The distance widens between her and her father until she must finally make her own life. Brave memoir.
Library Journal
The poignant yet triumphant tale Grande tells of her childhood and eventual illegal immigration puts a face on issues that stir vehement debate
Booklist
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family's cycle of separation and reunification. Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family's only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award.... She consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence.... A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Reyna is two years old when her father leaves Iguala for El Otro Lado (the other side). Why does he leave? Why do Reyna, her mother, and her two siblings—Mago and Carlos—stay behind?
2. When Reyna turns four, her father sends for her mother. Reyna, Mago, and Carlos are left to live with their father’s mother (Abuela Evila). Describe Reyna’s feelings regarding her mother’s leaving and her mother’s absence during these early years.
3. Who is “The Man Behind the Glass”? What does he symbolize?
4. Reyna wishes to stay with Abuelita Chinta instead of Abuela Evila. Compare and contrast the two grandmothers and their attitudes and behaviors toward their grandchildren. Are Reyna, Mago, and Carlos better off once they begin living with Abuelita Chinta? Why or why not? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.
5. Who is Élida and why is she favored by Abuela Evila? Is her behavior toward Reyna, Mago, and Carlos justified? Why or why not?
6. In what way does Tía Emperatriz come to the aid of Reyna, Mago, and Carlos? Could she have done more for the three siblings? Why or why not?
7. Describe Reyna’s relationship with her sister Mago. Why does Mago feel responsible for Reyna?
8. Describe the hardships Reyna, Mago, and Carlos face growing up in Iguala.
9. What reactions do the three siblings have when they learn they have a younger sister, Elizabeth? Who seems the most impacted by this news and why?
10. Why does Reyna’s mother, Juana, return alone from the United States? How does life change for Reyna, Mago, and Carlos when she returns?
11. Who is Rey and why do Reyna, Mago, and Carlos not like him? What happens when he visits the family during the holidays?
12. Compare and contrast Mago’s and Reyna’s feelings toward their mother as time after time she chooses her own needs over those of her children. Does she love her children? Use evidence from the text to support your response.
13. As Carlos matures, he has a need for a father figure. Identify the male role models in his life and explain the influences they have on his development.
14. When Reyna’s father returns from the United States after an eight-year absence, Reyna is almost ten. How does she feel about his return? Why does he return and why does he offer to take Mago back to the United States with him? Why does he want to leave Reyna and Carlos behind?
15. How does Reyna feel about the possible separation from Mago? Why does their father decide to take all three children back with him? Describe their harrowing journey. Is life better for them once they reach the United States? Support your answer with evidence from the text.
16. Mila is Natalio’s second wife. What are Reyna’s earliest perceptions of her? What influence does Milo have on Reyna, Mago, and Carlos?
17. Reyna attends school in both Mexico and the United States. Compare and contrast her experiences in both places. What can readers learn about the challenges poor children have in negotiating school?
18. Reyna does not speak English when she enters school in the United States. How does she overcome this challenge? How is she received by her teachers? By her classmates? What accounts for her ability to succeed?
19. Reyna’s father believes in education and supports Mago and Carlos when they enroll in college. Why does he not help Reyna? How does his refusal impact Reyna?
20. To whom does Reyna owe thanks for her success? Why? Do you agree or disagree and why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies
Ben Macintyre, 2012
Crown Publishing
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307888778
Summary
On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. D-Day was a stunning military accomplishment, but it was also a masterpiece of trickery.
Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, deceived the Nazis into believing that the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring that Hitler kept an entire army awaiting a fake invasion, saving thousands of lives, and securing an Allied victory at the most critical juncture in the war.
The story of D-Day has been told from the point of view of the soldiers who fought in it, the tacticians who planned it, and the generals who led it. But this epic event in world history has never before been told from the perspectives of the key individuals in the Double Cross System.
These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Cross’s nucleus: a dashing Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming and a volatile Frenchwoman, whose obsessive love for her pet dog very nearly wrecked the entire plan.
The D-Day spies were, without question, one of the oddest military units ever assembled, and their success depended on the delicate, dubious relationship between spy and spymaster, both German and British. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is revealed here for the first time.
With the same depth of research, eye for the absurd and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller, Double Cross is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitler’s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in safety. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1963
• Where—England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in London, England, UK
Ben Macintyre is a British author, historian, and columnist writing for The Times (London) newspaper. His columns range from current affairs to historical controversies.
Books
MacIntyre is the author of a book on the gentleman criminal Adam Worth, The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief (1992). He also wrote The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan (2004). In 2008 MacIntyre released an informative illustrated account of Ian Fleming, creator of the fictional spy James Bond, to accompany the For Your Eyes Only exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum, which was part of the Fleming Centenary celebrations.
Three of his most recent books center on World War II and have become international bestsellers. In 2007, he published Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Betrayer, Hero, Spy. The story centers on Chapman, a real-life double agent during the Second World War. Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, issued in 2010, recounts the Allied deception their impending invasion of Italy. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, released in 2012, is about the Allies' D-Day spy network.
All three books have been made into BBC documentaries—Operation Mincemeat (in 2010), Double Agent: The Eddie Chapman Story (in 2011), and Double Cross (in 2012). His most recent book, published in 2014, is A Spy Among Friends: Phil Kilby and the Great Betrayal. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
In Double Cross, Macintryre tells a tale that will be broadly familiar to those with an interest in military or intelligence history. But he does so with such lively writing, and with access to so many interesting new documents, that the story comes alive again in all its stupendous, unimaginable duplicity…A spy novelist couldn't invent characters as colorful as these, and Macintyre wisely lets newly declassified documents, private letters and personal recollections tell the story.
David Ignatius - Washington Post
Forget fiction when you are buying beach reading this summer. Ben Macintyre’s factual account is more gripping than what you will find anywhere else. It is a story unsurpassed in the long history of intelligence.
Washington Times
It should be said loud and clear that Macintyre is a supremely gifted storyteller. He spins quite a yarn. His books are absurdly entertaining. I would kill for his keen wit. He takes us into a world of bounders, spivs, roués, and men (and women) on the make…. Double Cross is a blast.
Boston Globe
A wonderfully entertaining story of deception and trickery that is told with verve and wit…. Macintyre’s early books about espionage in World War II have been bestsellers, and this will be no exception.
Christian Science Monitor
Another captivating, improbably fresh story of World War II…. Double Cross is ennobling, invigorating and, above all, entertaining. Macintyre's research is impressive, as is his ability to shape disparate facts into a breathless page-turner…. Throw in nail-biting suspense and the occasional decadent Nazi (fickle mistress optional) and, with Macintyre in charge, you're virtually guaranteed a history book that reads like a spy novel.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Macintyre revels in the surreal aspects of his story, writing with a breezy, almost tongue-in-cheek style. But the author is also adept at communicating the seriousness and the stakes of the underlying game…. Nail-biting and chuckle-inducing reading.
Columbus Dispatch
[A] complex, absorbing final installment in his trilogy about World War II espionage…. Macintyre is a master storyteller. Employing a wry wit and a keen eye for detail, he delivers an ultimately winning tale fraught with European intrigue and subtle wartime heroics.
San Francisco Chronicle
Macintyre at once exalts and subverts the myths of spycraft, and has a keen eye for absurdity.
New Yorker
Gripping stories from the perspective of a remarkable ragtag group of spies who tricked the Nazis in an astounding D-Day deception. Puts other spy tales to shame.
People
The brilliantly dangerous Allied plan (which MI5 called Double Cross)—recounted by Macintyre with the same skill and suspense he displayed in Operation Mincemeat and Agent Zigzag—to throw off the Germans and launch an assault at Normandy on June 6, 1944. The key to the plan—convincing Germany that the impending attack would come either at Pas de Calais or in Norway—was the careful manipulation of five double agents, each feeding misinformation back to their German handlers.... Macintyre effortlessly weaves the agents’ deliciously eccentric personalities with larger wartime events to shape a tale that reads like a top-notch spy thriller. Photos, map.
Publishers Weekly
D-Day, June 6, 1944. Some 150,000 Allied troops land successfully on the beaches of Normandy, sustaining only 5000 casualties. How did they manage it? Through a vast act of deception.... Best-selling author Macintyre (Operation Mincemeat) should turn in an absorbing read about a little-acknowledged facet of the war.
Library Journal
Newly declassified intelligence files flesh out the intricately interwoven network of World War II spies who formed the Double Cross British espionage system.... Macintyre...fashions [an] expansive, ambitious tale of five double agents with dubious credentials but certain loyalties employed by the British to "cook up a diet of harmless truths, half-truths and uncheckable untruths to feed to the enemy" .... to hoodwink the Germans utterly regarding the Normandy landings.... [T[he dangers of getting picked up by the Gestapo and tortured for information was a constant danger.... Invisible ink, double-agent homing pigeons and a Hollywood double for Gen. Monty—nicely woven tales of stealth, brashness and derring-do.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.
The Still Point of the Turning World
Emily Rapp, 2013
Penguin Group USA
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594205125
Summary
Like all mothers, Emily Rapp had ambitious plans for her first and only child, Ronan. He would be smart, loyal, physically fearless, and level-headed, but fun. He would be good at crossword puzzles like his father. He would be an avid skier like his mother. Rapp would speak to him in foreign languages and give him the best education.
But all of these plans changed when Ronan was diagnosed at nine months old with Tay-Sachs disease, a rare and always-fatal degenerative disorder. Ronan was not expected to live beyond the age of three; he would be permanently stalled at a developmental level of six months.
Rapp and her husband were forced to re-evaluate everything they thought they knew about parenting. They would have to learn to live with their child in the moment; to find happiness in the midst of sorrow; to parent without a future.
The Still Point of the Turning World is the story of a mother’s journey through grief and beyond it. Rapp’s response to her son’s diagnosis was a belief that she needed to "make my world big"—to make sense of her family’s situation through art, literature, philosophy, theology and myth.
Drawing on a broad range of thinkers and writers, from C.S. Lewis to Sylvia Plath, Hegel to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Rapp learns what wisdom there is to be gained from parenting a terminally ill child. In luminous, exquisitely moving prose she re-examines our most fundamental assumptions about what it means to be a good parent, to be a success, and to live a meaningful life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 12, 1974
• Where—Grand Island, Nebraska, USA
• Raised—Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado
• Education—B.A., St. Olaf College; M.A., Harvard
University; M.F.A., University of Texas, Austin
• Currently—lives in Sante Fe, New Mexico
Emily Susan Rapp is an American memoirist. When she was six years old, she was chosen as the poster child for the March of Dimes, due to a congenital birth defect that resulted in the amputation of her leg.
As of 2013, she has written two memoirs: Poster Child (2007), which presents her life as an amputee, and The Still Point of the Turning World (2013), the story of the birth of her child and his diagnoses of Tay-Sachs disease.
Rapp is a former Fulbright scholar and recipient of the James A. Michener Fellowship. As of 2013, she is a professor of Creative Writing and Literature at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Childhood
Emily Susan Rapp was in Grand Island, Nebraska but was raised in Laramie, Wyoming; Kearney, Nebraska and Denver, Colorado. She and her older brother were the children of a Lutheran pastor (their father) and a school nurse (their mother). At age four, her left leg was amputated above the knee as the result of a congenital birth defect called proximal femoral focal deficiency. She has worn a prosthetic leg ever since. At age six, she was named as the poster child for the March of Dimes in Wyoming. She was trained as a downhill skier at the Center for Disabled Sports in Winter Park, Colorado.
Education
Rapp received her B.A. in Religion and Women's Studies from Saint Olaf College. She has an M.A. in Theological Studies from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. She has attended Trinity College in Ireland. In 1996 she received a Fulbright Fellowship to Seoul, South Korea.
Personal
In January 2011, Rapp and her husband, Rick Louis, learned that their son, Ronan Christopher Louis, had classic infantile Tay-Sachs disease. Babies with this disease, according to the National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Association, "the first signs of Tay-Sachs disease can vary and are evident at different ages in affected children. Initially, development slows, there is a loss of peripheral vision, and the child exhibits an abnormal startle response. By about 2 years of age, most children experience recurrent seizures and diminishing mental function....
Rapp began the blog Little Seal to chronicle her life with Ronan and dealing with the disease. She writes in this first post...
The narrative is empty. There is only a sense of hollowness, blackness, void, of wanting to literally crawl out of my own skin. Even this description is not sufficient. But I am a writer. I write. And just as I have written through every experience, euphoric or horrific, throughout my life, I will write my way through this, and I hope those of you who know and love Rick and me and Ronan will be a part of this record of his time here, on this blog ...
On February 15, 2013, her son Ronan passed away in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where the family resides.
Professional background
Writing
Rapp published her first memoir Poster Child in 2007, detailing her life as an amputee. She has written,
[The] notion, that happiness and fulfillment hinge upon radical transformation, has followed me throughout my life. From an early age, I had fantasies of being "healed" of my disability, a miracle I envisioned as rather more Disney than biblical.
Her 2013 memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World, shares shares the author's life and experiences following her son's diagnosis at nine months old with a degenerative disorder known as Tay-Sachs
Rapp has received awards and recognition for her short stories, poems and essays from The Atlantic Monthly, StoryQuarterly, the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation, the Jentel Arts Foundation, the Corporation of Yaddo, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Rhode Island, and the Valparaiso Foundation.
Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, salon.com, The Sun, Texas Observer, and Body & Soul. She has taught writing in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles; The Taos Writers' Workshop in New Mexico; the MFA program at the University of California, Riverside; and the Gotham Writers' Workshop.
As of 2013, she is a professor of Creative Writing and Literature at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She travels frequently to schools and universities to talk about issues of the body, illness, and the creative process. (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Rapp has an emotional accessibility reminiscent of Wild author Cheryl Strayed; her unique experiences have a touch of the universal. She comes across as open, midthought. In her book, she wrestles with the ideas of luck and sentimentality and life and love and often circles back, unresolved. Despite being a former divinity student, she bypasses religion for literature, seeking meaning in poetry, myth and, especially, Frankenstein and its author, Mary Shelley.... Her kind of parent? The dragon mother: powerful, sometimes terrifying, full of fire and magic.
Carolyn Kellogg - Los Angeles Times
Rapp...delineates a bracing, heartbreaking countdown in the life of her terminally ill son. At age nine months, Ronan was diagnosed with Tay-Sachs.... Ronan's "death sentence" was for Rapp and her husband, Rick, living in Santa Fe, a time of grief, reckoning, and learning how to live, and her elegant, restrained work flows with reflections.... Her narrative does not follow Ronan as far as his death, but gleans lessons from Buddhism.... Unflinching and unsentimental, Rapp's work lends a useful, compassionate, healing message for suffering parents and caregivers.
Publishers Weekly
A passionate, potent chronicle of the author's last months with her son..... The author describes her moving struggle to make each day spent with her son memorable and to savor her ability to mother during the time remaining. She also considers her son's disability in light of her own congenital deformity that led to the amputation of her left leg.... Searching for spiritual solace, Rapp and her husband attended a Buddhist retreat and cherished the words of one of the teachers: "Remember there's a whole person behind whatever physical affect presents itself." A beautiful, searing exploration of the landscape of grief and a profound meditation on the meaning of life.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. A topic Rapp discusses is the idea of wellness versus health—what is the difference between the two? Do you believe we tend to associate wellness with wholeness, and is this a fallacy?
2. In making decisions for Ronan’s palliative care, Rapp brings up the case of Baby Joseph and contends that the concept of life’s "value" should be replaced with the word "quality." What is the difference between the "value of life" and the "quality of life" and what do you think we prioritize in contemporary society?
3. Rapp refers to her and the other mothers of children with Tay-Sachs as "Dragon Mothers." What are the characteristics of a Dragon Mother and how do their priorities differ from those of other mothers?
4. In the days after Ronan’s diagnosis, Rapp has trouble with the one activity that she has always found solace in—reading. She can’t find any solace in books until she picks up a collection of myths. What about myths does Rapp find so appealing? How do they differ from the other forms of literature she discusses throughout the book?
5. At one point Rapp tells her husband, Rick, "It’s as if there’s another baby right behind this baby, and we’ll never get to meet him" (p. 75). What does she mean by this? And how does she reconcile this feeling with the baby she does have?
6. How is Ronan described in The Still Point of the Turning World? What language does Rapp use to describe him? What are the challenges of writing a portrait of a person without language? Does Rapp overcome them or embrace them?
7. Rapp writes that traditional parenting guides are of no help when it comes to being a mother to Ronan and in the end the only guide was her imagination (p. 176). What does this mean? In what ways do we see Rapp using her imagination as a guide throughout her memoir?
8. What are some examples of how Rapp’s own disability (the loss of her leg) teaches her how to be a mother to Ronan?
9. On page 54, Rapp suggests that there is a leap "from experience to meaning" and that we often let other people make it for us. What is the benefit of making this leap on our own, as Ronan must?
10. What is the role of Rapp’s husband, Rick, in the narrative? What are some moments in the memoir where Rapp describes their partnership? Would you say that they go through this experience alone, together, or both?
11. At one point, Rapp and her husband visit an animal hospice with Ronan. How does Rapp compare Ronan’s experience of life with those of the animals?
12. What is Rapp’s opinion of "future-focused" parenting?
13. With all the vocabulary at her disposal, why is the single, simple word "Gee" so meaningful to Rapp? (Questions issued by the publisher.)
Her: A Memoir
Christa Parravani, 2013
Henry Holt & Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805096538
Summary
A blazingly passionate memoir of identity and love: when a charismatic and troubled young woman dies tragically, her identical twin must struggle to survive
Christa Parravani and her identical twin, Cara, were linked by a bond that went beyond siblinghood, beyond sisterhood, beyond friendship. Raised up from poverty by a determined single mother, the gifted and beautiful twins were able to create a private haven of splendor and merriment between themselves and then earn their way to a prestigious college and to careers as artists (a photographer and a writer, respectively) and to young marriages. But, haunted by childhood experiences with father figures and further damaged by being raped as a young adult, Cara veered off the path to robust work and life and in to depression, drugs and a shocking early death.
A few years after Cara was gone, Christa read that when an identical twin dies, regardless of the cause, 50 percent of the time the surviving twin dies within two years; and this shocking statistic rang true to her. "Flip a coin," she thought," those were my chances of survival." First, Christa fought to stop her sister's downward spiral; suddenly, she was struggling to keep herself alive.
Beautifully written, mesmerizingly rich and true, Christa Parravani's account of being left, one half of a whole, and of her desperate, ultimately triumphant struggle for survival is informative, heart-wrenching and unforgettably beautiful. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1978
• Raised—Guilderland, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Bard College; M.F.A, Columbia University;
M.F.A., Rutgers University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Christa Parravani is a writer and photographer. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally, and are represented by the Michael Foley Gallery in New York City and the Kopeikin gallery in Los Angeles. She has taught photography at Dartmouth College, Columbia University and UMass, Amherst. She earned her MFA in Visual Art from Columbia University and her MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers Newark. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Anthony Swofford (Jarhead) and their daughter. (From the publihser.)
Book Reviews
Christa Parravani powerfully transforms her anguish over the traumatic death of her troubled identical sister into the astonishing Her.
Vanity Fair
A photographer and identical twin tells the intimately delineated, raw story of her beloved sister’s overdose on heroin and untimely death at age 28 in 2006. Emotionally attuned and protectively close to each other since growing up in Schenectady to parents in a rocky marriage before their strong-willed mother essentially raised them on her own, Parravani and her sister, Cara, were obsessed with the other for much of their lives: critical of their shared but subtly different looks; jealous of the other’s boyfriends, then husbands; and certain that the twins would die somehow together. In her mid-20s Cara was violently raped in the woods near her Holyoke, Mass., home, and spiraled into drug abuse (e.g., prescription drugs, heroin) from what was eventually diagnosed as “post-traumatic stress disorder with borderline features.” Her self-destruction imposed an enormous toll on the author, who felt responsible for her sister and riddled by guilt: “I feel like her life is in my hands,” Parravani said to her then-husband. In between Cara’s stays in rehab and mental hospitals, the author took numerous photographs of her sister and herself together as part of her growing artistic and teaching oeuvre, and in acutely observed passages (also alternating with Cara’s diary entries), the author describes her eerie attempts to create for the camera identical likenesses. Cara’s death sent the author into her own drug-induced death wish, before she pulled back from the brink; her memoir is a finely wrought achievement of grace, emotional honesty, and self-possession.
Publishers Weekly
There's great in-house excitement about this memoir by photographer Parravani, writing about what it's been like to have lived with and lost twin sister Cara, a talented writer sucked into a downward spiral of drugs and depression that led to an early death. Raised by a tough-minded single mother, the sisters were stung early by their father's rejection; Cara was also raped as a young adult, which magnified her pain. Christa reflects on their close bond and the struggle to survive without Cara. With a reading group guide and intensive promotion.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Concise and captivating, Parravani’s prose paints her phoenix-like transformation such that the reader feels the flames of her fire. A poignant, book-arcing metaphor illustrates Christa’s battle to accept herself with a mirror-image. Raw and unstoppable, Her illuminates the triumph of the human spirit – both individual and shared.
Booklist
In this haunting memoir, photographer Parravani deconstructs the intense bonds between identical twins, the trauma of her sister's death and her battle against similar self-destruction. Raised by a strong-willed mother, the twins, Christa and Cara, shared a magical, intense and creative world of their own making. Plagued by unstable and abusive father figures and poverty, they still managed to attend prestigious colleges, begin careers as artists and embark on marriages. But following a rape while out walking her dog, Parravani's twin began a terrifying descent into drugs and self-destruction. A year after the rape, the author began to understand that her sister's situation was serious enough to require a stay at an expensive rehab center. "I was under the impression, the diluted perspective of the desperate," she writes, "that the more money we threw at the problem of Cara's addiction and despair, the more likely it was that she'd recover." Faced with the statistic that when one identical twin perishes, the surviving twin's rate of dying within the next few years spikes, the author chronicles her battle to avoid her sister's fate. Parravani's marriage failed, and as her career as a photography professor at a small college faltered, she checked herself into a personality-disorder wing of a hospital. Delicately weaving lyrical language together with her sister's journals, her mother's correspondence and conversations with family members, Parravani's mesmerizing narrative tapestry reveals the multiple facets inherent within their tangled, complex and loving relationship. "My reflection was her and it wasn't her. I was myself but I was my sister. I was hallucinating Cara--this isn't a metaphor," writes the author, who stepped back from the brink and began life anew with her second husband, the writer Anthony Swofford. Parravani delicately probes the fragile, intimate boundaries among love, identity and loss.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Christa mixes in excerpts from Cara’s writings throughout the book. How did this help in your understanding of Cara and how did it affect the storytelling? In what ways is Christa’s memoir also Cara’s?
2. What makes the relationship between identical twins unique from that of just siblings, or even fraternal twins? Do you think that identical twins are biologically prone to think and feel the same way, or is it something that evolves from their inextricably knit experiences? In what ways is the relationship between Christa and Cara so special? As much as they were alike, how were they also very different?
3. Art is a signifi cant part of the sisters’ lives. Discuss the importance of creating art for Cara and Christa. What do you think it meant for them to be able to create works of art in the midst of their tumultuous lives?
4. After Cara’s death, there were moments when Christa tried to be exactly like her sister, and also moments when she wanted to be completely free of her. Why did she assume these confl icting states of mind? Do you think that as an identical twin you can ever have your own identity?
5. Research shows that when an identical twin dies, the chances of the surviving twin also dying within two years drastically increases. Although coming very close to death, how was Christa able to survive and start a new life without her sister?
6. What is the importance of home and location in the sisters’ lives? How did their constant displacement as children affect their idea and need for a home as adults? What does “home” mean to them? What does it mean to you?
7. The book is mostly comprised of Christa’s memories of her life with her sister. Christa says that it’s hard to tell if her memories are true without Cara; that she is “the sole historian left to record [their] lives.” Think back on the memories you have of growing up. How do we distinguish truth from mere memories? And does truth matter when it comes to your own experiences, or is it the things you take from those moments that really count?
8. Do you think the body is a mere vehicle for the person or is it a part of your whole self? Do you think it is possible to detach yourself from your body? After Cara suffered a horrifi c rape, how was she changed? What seems to have happened to her connection with her body? What happened to Christa’s connection to her body after Cara’s death, and how was she able to fi nd a new connection with her body in the end?
9. What do you make of Christa’s conversation with the psychic? Do you believe in the supernatural and that we can communicate with those who have passed? Do you think that Christa’s visions of Cara were actually visits from another world, or were they illusions of dreams and grief?
10. Christa’s connection to her husband, Anthony, was unlike any other she had with a man. They both experienced much heartache and pain throughout their lives. Why do you think Christa was so drawn to him from the start? Are the best matches the ones who are as equally broken as we are?
11. Discuss the theme of birth and death. How are the two juxtaposed within the memoir? How does the birth of her daughter signal a new beginning for Christa?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Until I Say Good-bye: My Year of Living with Joy
Susan Spencer-Wendel, 2013
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062241450
Summary
In June 2011, Susan Spencer-Wendel learned she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—Lou Gehrig's disease—an irreversible condition that systematically destroys the nerves that power the muscles. She was forty-four years old, with a devoted husband and three young children, and she had only one year of health remaining.
Susan decided to live that year with joy.
She quit her job as a journalist and spent time with her family. She built an outdoor meeting space for friends in her backyard. And she took seven trips with the seven most important people in her life. As her health declined, Susan journeyed to the Yukon, Hungary, the Bahamas, and Cyprus. She took her sons to swim with dolphins, and her teenage daughter, Marina, to Kleinfeld's bridal shop in New York City to see her for the first and last time in a wedding dress.
She also wrote this book. No longer able to walk or even to lift her arms, she tapped it out letter by letter on her iPhone using only her right thumb, the last finger still working.
However, Until I Say Good-Bye is not angry or bitter. It is sad in parts—how could it not be?—but it is filled with Susan's optimism, joie de vivre, and sense of humor. It is a book about life, not death. One that, like Susan, will make everyone smile.
From the Burger King parking lot where she cried after her diagnosis to a snowy hot spring near the Arctic Circle, from a hilarious family Christmas disaster to the decrepit monastery in eastern Cyprus where she rediscovered her heritage, <em >Until I Say Good-Bye is not only Susan Spencer-Wendel's unforgettable gift to her loved ones—a heartfelt record of their final experiences together—but an offering to all of us: a reminder that "every day is better when it is lived with joy." (From the publisher.)
Watch the video.
Author Bio
• Birth—December, 1966
• Raised—West Palm Beach, Florida, USA
• Education—B.B., University of North Carolina-
Chapel Hill; M.A., University of Florida
• Currently—lives in West Palm Beach, Florida
Susan Spencer-Wendel was an award-winning journalist at the Palm Beach Post for almost twenty years. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Florida. She has been honored for her work by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Florida Society of News Editors, and she received a lifetime achievement award for her court reporting from the Florida Bar. She lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, with her family.
Bret Witter has collaborated on five New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Decatur, Georgia. (Author bios from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Journalist Spencer-Wendel....writes with courage and strength. When she gets the news, the 40-something author is in her prime, blessed with a great reporter job at the Palm Beach Post and loving family. Using benefits from an insurance policy, she quits her job and decides to take trips with her family and friends, so that she can have all of the amazing experiences she's put off and create lasting memories.... There are certainly moments of heartbreak that she doesn't shy away from....but in writing her story, she shows her family and friends how to go on, choosing happiness and love over fear.
Publishers Weekly
Diagnosed at age 45 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), Spencer-Wendel plunged into a live-each-day-fully whirlwind that has already made news (she was spotlighted in the Wall Street Journal, and the film rights to her story have been acquired for $2.5 million). Here she recounts trips to the Yukon to see the Northern Lights, for instance, and to Northern California to meet her birth mother. Most telling, she shops in New York with her 14-year-old daughter for the wedding dress she won't live to see her daughter wear.
Library Journal
Spencer-Wendel chronicles her life and the decisions she has made since being diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).... In her mid-40s and a happily married mother of three with a thriving career, the author rejected the option of assisted suicide in favor of making her last years memorable despite the inevitability of increasing disability. Although not believing that her death would ruin the lives of her husband and children, she understood that it might "affect their ability to live with delight. To live with joy." Spencer-Wendel was determined to overcome her dread of losing mobility and to live her life to the fullest even as the disease progressed. As inspiration, the author found solace in Lou Gehrig's 1939 farewell speech, in which he described himself as "the luckiest man on the face of the Earth, even after 'catching a bad break.' " ... A poignant, wise love story.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider thest talking points to help get a discussion started for Until I Say Good-bye:
1. What do you find most admirable about Susan when she learns of her illness? What enables her to approach her illness and coming death with such courage? Where does that kind of strength come from?
2. How might you respond to receiving such a diagnsis? What would be hardest for you? Would you forgo treatments to extend your life as she did? Would you ever choose assisted suicide...or reject it as Susan did?
3. If you had a year to live, how would you choose to live it? What would you do...where would you go?
4. Do you feel inspired by this book...and by Susan Spencer-Wendel?
5. Although Susan, her husband, and many reviewers insist that this book is not sad, there are certainly sad moments. What were some of the saddest occasions in the book for you. The memoir also contains humor—talk about the parts you found funny. Overall, how do you characterize this book—funny, sad, uplifting, depressing?
6. In an Amazon.com interview with Cokie Roberts, Susan says:
Desire is the root of all suffering, I believe. To want something you can't have. The cure is to not want it. I practice not wanting a cure, preparing to die. Choosing the path of least resistance. Going gracefully into the night.
Talk about that statement. Is desire "the root to all suffering"? A number of religious practices adhere to thata philosophy. Do you? What does that mean not to desire? Wouldn't life be flat and uninteresting without desire? Or would not-desiring lead to a better life?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution. Thanks.)