Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage
Edith B. Gelles, 2009
HarperCollins
338 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061354120
Summary
The story of Abigail and John Adams is as much a romance as it is a lively chapter in the early history of this country.
The marriage of the second president and first lady is one of the most extraordinary examples of passion and endurance that this country has ever witnessed. And it is a drama peopled with a pantheon of eighteenth-century stars: George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson, his daughter Patsy, Ben Franklin, and Mercy Otis Warren.
Abigail and John were a uniquely compatible duo, and in their remarkable union we can see the strength of a people determined to achieve full independence in the face of daunting odds. Yet while much has been written about each as an individual, Abigail and John provides, for the first time, the captivating story of their dedication and sacrifice that helped usher in the founding of our country, a time that fascinates us still.
Married in 1764 by Abigail's reverend father, the young couple worked side by side for a decade, raising a family while John's status as one of the most prosperous, respected lawyers in Massachusetts grew. As his duties within the new republic expanded, the Adamses endured a long period of sporadic separations. But their loyalty and love kept their bond firm across the distance, as is evident in their tender letters. It's in this correspondence that Abigail comes into her own as a woman of politics, offering words of advice and encouragement to a husband whose absences were crucial to the independence they both cherished. And it's also in these exchanges that they worked through the familial tragedies that tested them: the death of their son Charles from alcoholism and the impoverishment and early death of their daughter Nabby.
Through its fifty-four years, the union of John and Abigail Adams was based on mutual respect and ambition, intellect and equality, that went far beyond the conventional bond. Abigail and John is an inspirational portrait of a couple who endured the turmoil and trials of a revolution, and in so doing paved the way for the birth of a nation. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Edith B. Gelles, Ph.D., holds degrees from Cornell, Yale, and the University of California-Irvine. She has taught at several universities and is a Senior Scholar at Stanford's Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research. She lives in Palo Alto, California (From the publisher.)
More
Edith B. Gelles is the author of Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage, published in 2009 by HarperCollins. She recently edited and wrote an extended biographical introduction to The Letters of Abigail Levy Franks (1733-1748), published by Yale University Press in 2004.
A historian of colonial America, Gelles has written two biographies of Abigail Adams. Portia: The World of Abigail Adams (1992), which was co-winner of the American Historical Association's Herbert Feis Award. First Thoughts: Life and Letters of Abigail Adams (1998) was published in paperback by Routledge with the title, Abigail Adams: A Writing Life.
Gelles wrote the centennial catalogue for the Libraries of Stanford University: "For Instruction and Research." She has published many articles and reviews and has taught in the Humanities as well as the Continuing Studies Programs at Stanford. (From Stanford University, Institute for Gender Research.)
Book Reviews
There have been numerous biographies, scholarly works, and even novels on the lives of both John Adams, the second President of the United States, and his wife, Abigail. However, few of these works treat the Adamses fully as a couple, struggling together to make it through revolutionary times. Gelles is no stranger to Abigail Adams, having previously written Abigail Adams: A Writing Life and Portia: The World of Abigail Adams. But what is most striking about her latest work is not only that it treats the two formative founding figures together but that it reads much like fiction. Gelles culled her research from the couple's letters, using their words to tell the story of their marriage. By intertwining the stories of John and Abigail, Gelles re-creates the world of revolutionary Boston and New England with marked success. She also reminds us that while the founding of the United States may have been a male enterprise, women were also involved, though their influence was private. Recommended for both lay readers and scholars.
Susan Alteri - Library Journal
Gelles’ focus here is on the relationship, even partnership, between two highly intelligent, strong-willed individuals.... [A] fine, well-documented examination of a long, successful partnership. —Jay Freeman
Booklist
A dual biography spotlighting one of the most remarkable partnerships in American history. The United States has had only a few First Couples in which the historical significance of the wife has approached that of the husband. John and Abigail Adams share this status almost entirely because of Abigail's letters, a correspondence Gelles (Gender Studies/Stanford Univ.; Abigail Adams: A Writing Life, 2002, etc.) rightly terms the revolutionary era's "best historical record written by a woman." In letters to her husband, children and friends like Mercy Warren, James Lovell and Thomas Jefferson, Abigail revealed her liveliness, strong affections, abiding faith and keen intelligence, all crucial to maintaining a marriage marked by frequent forced separations. Certain passages from this epistolary treasure have become famous: Abigail's eyewitness description of the Battle of Bunker Hill, her disquisition against slavery, her proto-feminist plea to her husband, occupied with theories of government at the Continental Congress, to "Remember the Ladies." Gelles uses these letters and many more including John's to Abigail to construct a moving picture of a marriage whose terms required constant renegotiation as events forced each partner to assume or relinquish tasks commonly ascribed to the other sex. Both subscribed to what the author terms their "family myth." From Braintree to Boston, Paris to London, Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., where they became the first occupants of what would later become known as the White House, the Adams's story is one of politics interwoven with family life. Notwithstanding some occasional, unfortunate academic locutions (e.g., "gender" used as a verb), Gelles pushes their marriage and family life vividly to the fore. She examines the couple's shared sorrows: a daughter's miserable marriage, an alcoholic son, as well as the many triumphs that would have been impossible, but for Abigail's wise management of her household and solicitous care for her brilliant, deeply insecure husband. A revealing exploration of an exceptional marriage marked by mutual understanding, empathy and deep love.
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 these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Abigail and John:
1. What did John Adams mean when he referred to his and Abigail's attraction to one another as "the Steel and the Magnet"? Who was the steel...and who the magnet?
2. How does one explain this remarkable 54-year-marriage between two strong and independent personalities? To what do you attribute it? What gave it the relationship strength? Was their marriage unique—was it typical of the 18th century? Is it unique by today's standards?
3. What were some of the worst hardships the couple endured? How, dear readers, would any of us have withstood those difficulties?
3. What can you discern of each personality through their letters? How would you describe Abigail...and how would you describe John? Have you learned anything new about either of them? What surprised you the most...or increased your admiration for them...or disappointed you?
4. Gelles says that both partners bought into "the family myth." What does she mean by that...what was the myth, and how did it work (according to the author) to keep them together? In fact, was it a myth—or was it as much truth as fiction?
5. Talk about the affect of the Alien and Sedition Acts on John Adams's reputation...and on the country. How influential was Abigail in their passage? What was her attitude toward them?
6. Discuss Abigail's relationships/friendships with others: Mercy Otis Warren, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and his daughter Patsy? What was Abigail's relationship with James Lovell? Why did she refer to him as "a dangerous man"?
7. What is Gelles' theory for why Adams picked up his pen (quill) and wrote to Jefferson—thus resuming their friendship after a bitter, protracted dispute?
8. Was Abigail a proto-feminist? (There is disagreement on the answer to this question. What do you think?)
9. Select one of your favorite letters, by either John or Abigail, and read it out loud. Why does it stand out to you?
10. How did Abigail define the role of First Lady? Is her version of First Lady relevant today—or has it changed?
11. As First Lady, how influential was Abigail in developing national policy?
12. Talk about the Adams's long separation when John was in Paris. How difficult would it have been to maintain their marriage over time and distance—without the ease of modern communications?!
13. Talk about John and Abigail as parents...and their relationships with their children.
14. What other works have you read about the Adamses? How does this compare with them?
15. Have you watched John Adams, the 2008 miniseries with Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney? You might consider playing segments of it during your meeting...and comparing film and book. (The series was based on David McCullough's 2001 biography, John Adams.)
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena
Julia Reed, 2004
Crown Publishing
240pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812973617
Summary
Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena collects a bevy of wise, witty, often hilarious essays by the inimitably charming, staunchly Southern Julia Reed.
In classic Dixie storytelling fashion, Reed wends her way through the South—from politics, religion, and women to weather, pestilence, guns, and what she calls "drinking and other Southern pursuits"—with a rare blend of literary elegance and plainspoken humor.
To hear Reed tell it, the South is another country. She builds an entertaining and persuasive case, using as examples everything from its unfathomable codes of conduct to its disciplined fashion sense. When a bemused Reed once commented on the cross-dressing get-ups of an upstanding community member, her austere grandfather said, "He's been wearing them lately. Now come on." A friend of her aunt's merely said, "I wonder where he gets his shoes. I can't ever find good-looking shoes in Nashville."
Southern food, of course, is an entire world apart: gumbo, grits, greens, okra, chess pie, Lady Baltimore cake, and Frito chili pie make memorable appearances in Reed's stories, which will amuse, delight, and even explain a thing or two to baffed Yankees everywhere. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Greenville, Mississippi, USA
• Education—attended Georgetown and American Universities
• Currently—lives in New Orleans, Louisiana
Julia Reed grew up in Greenville, Mississippi. She is a contributing editor at Newsweek and is the author of the essay collection Queen of the Turtle Derby and the memoir The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story. She lives in New Orleans (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Julia Reed's effervescent collection of essays is an under-the-hair-dryer book (a cousin of the beach book), and even though no woman I know still sits under the dryer at the salon, a beauty parlor is the perfect place to inhale Queen of the Turtle Derby: And Other Southern Phenomena. Reed is both a senior writer at Vogue and a native daughter of the Mississippi Delta, and her voice and tone are those of your most consistently amusing girlfriend.... In the end, there's a satisfying match here between the subtext and the text. Reed embodies exactly what she's trying to convey: her tone is charming, glancing, amusing, sometimes a tad superficial, sometimes biting, but never offensive. These are captivating qualities in a storyteller, appreciated not just in the South but everywhere.
Karen Karbo - New York Times Book Review
A rambunctiously charming essay collection.... As refreshing and bracing as a mint julep.... Even the most hopeless Yankee will have no trouble getting in touch with her inner Poultry Princess.
Vogue
In this engaging collection of essays, Mississippi native Reed—a writer for Vogue and the New York Times Magazine who now splits her time between New Orleans and New York City—presents a fresh and eclectic portrait of the South. Reed’s vision is both celebratory and critical, and it underscores her assertion that the South is "much more complicated and more interesting" than standard perceptions and caricatures of the region suggest. She tackles amusing topics like Southern hairdos and fashion, and the unrivaled pride Southern women take in their appearance ("I once saw three Chi Omegas jogging on the Ole Miss campus at seven-thirty in the morning in pale pink sweatsuits, full makeup and perky ponytails ties with matching pink bows"). She also addresses more serious issues, such as the area’s high rates of violence and lack of gun control. And as she renders an honest portrayal of the quirks, foibles and wonders of the region, she even pays homage to (and provides a recipe for) that Southern food staple: fried chicken.
Publishers Weekly
Reed, bless her heart, has written a laugh-aloud collection of personal essays about the South. God, guns, beauty queens, fashion accessories, booze, hurricanes, and, of course, recipes are featured in these 30 previously published works by Reed, a senior writer at Vogue and contributing writer at Newsweek. Readers are sent on a roaring roller-coaster ride around Reed's childhood in Mississippi and her current life in New Orleans and New York. "Lady Killers," a prickly essay, may raise the eyebrows of unsuspecting readers with its examination of the belief that a "white, well-dressed, churchgoing" Mississippi woman can get away with murder owing to a double standard regarding capital cases. "The Morning After" explains how a good fight adds to the zest of a high-quality party. Several essays repeat the same details when describing and explaining Southern fashion, beauty, and hair styles. Satirical, spirited writing for fans of the Sweet Potato Queens who appreciate recipes for fried chicken and frozen tomatoes, this is recommended for larger regional libraries. —Joyce Sparrow, Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas Cty., FL
Library Journal
For a region that lives and dies by its time-honored, if tawdry, traditions and is known for its colorful, if not controversial, characters, the South has some explaining to do for its excessive eccentricities. And there is no one more capable than Reed,...[who] humorously and humbly celebrates the quirkiness that lies deep in the heart of Dixie. —Carol Haggas
Booklist
In 22 lively essays, 10 reprinted from Vogue, the New York Times Magazine, etc., Reed defends, with wry humor and an agreeable appreciation of the absurd, the South's continuing distinctiveness. Some of these pieces overlap in content, but collectively they form a portrait of a region that, despite shopping malls and national chains, continues to follow its own idiosyncratic ways. The subjects are South lite, reflecting rather regional quirks than the darker history, as Reed writes of debutantes, food, and alcohol consumption in essays titled, respectively, "Debutantes," "Eat Here," and "Booze." Debutante balls in the South, Reed observes, are burdened with a whole lot of history as they try to resurrect the past by honoring old well-born families and "the myth of our cavalier past in all its full-blown weirdness." In "Eat Here," she observes that though tastes are now more sophisticated, southerners eat okra, drink iced tea (sweet or unsweet), and, unlike Yankees, when asked to name the best meal ever eaten, will recall one served at home. Mississippi, where Reed was born, kept Prohibition laws on the books until 1966 ("Booze"), but that didn't stop the state having the cheapest and most plentiful alcohol as well as more liquor retail outfits than any of the legally wet states. Other essays explain southern fashion (soft and ladylike), justice (women murderers rarely hang despite committing some pretty lurid crimes), and attitudes about life (they subscribe to an idea of living with, as John Keats had it, "uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." The title comes from an event that began in Arkansas in 1930 and includes a 60-foot turtle race,and the crowning of a derby queen. It illustrates, Reed suggests, the South's capacity for entertaining themselves with whatever is available. This capacity is celebrated in every piece, as Reed deftly mixes personal reminiscences with facts and local lore. Engaging evidence that the South is still different.
Kirkus Reviews>
Discussion Questions
1. In her introduction, Reed says that when she returned to her native South in 1991, there was a theory in vogue that the region was losing its identity as a separate place. She says she found plenty of proof that the South's identity is still firmly intact. Do her essays make a convincing case?
2. More than twenty years ago, John Egerton wrote The Americanization of Dixie. In the 2004 election, "NASCAR dads" comprised a sought-after votingbloc and "red" states placed an emphasis on family and religious values that are typically seen as Southern. Also, every Southern state voted red. Do you think that it is now possible to make the case that it is the rest of America that is being Southernized?
3. On the basis of Reed's observations, would you say that politics and religion are more closely intertwined in the South than in other regions?
4. In "To Live and Die in Dixie," Reed quotes Mississippi writer Willie Morris, who said, "It's the juxtapositions that drive you crazy." She points out that Southerners are the most violent people in the nation but also the most religious. What are some other examples of double standards found throughout the book?
5. In "American Beauty" and "Southern Fashion Explained," Reed makes the case that women's looks are largely defined by their region. Do you believe that? If so, how would you describe the "look" of the place where you live?
6. In "Miss Scarlett" Reed makes the case that Scarlett O'Hara was an early feminist. But she was also manipulative and used her beauty to get what she wanted. Have Southern women evolved from the Scarlett stereotype? In what ways do they still mimic Scarlett?
7. In one of the more memorable scenes from the film Gone with the Wind, Scarlett rips the silk curtains off the windows so that she can make a proper gown of them. On page 132 of "Miss Scarlett." Reed writes that "Scarlett was Southern, she was a woman, she was going to keep up appearances." Give examples found in the book of the importance of "keeping up appearances" to both male and female Southerners.
8. Reed writes affectionately and enthusiastically about what she obviously feels is the superiority of Southern cuisine. Discuss the larger importance of food in Southern culture.
9. Throughout the book there are examples of well-meaning people who could easily be the objects of laughter or scorn--the beauty queen who supplies the title of the book, for example, or the man who swears he's grown closer to God since he found a cross-shaped sweet potato in his vegetable patch. Do you think Reed means to ridicule them, or does she succeed in painting an affectionate but clear-eyed portrait of the characters that populate her native land, despite their many foibles?
10. Reed gives several examples of Southerners' proclivity toward socializing, whether it be at a funeral or a party thrown the day after a party just because there was some whiskey left (page 177). What factors do you think contribute to the more aggressively social part of Southerners' natures?
11. Do you think that if Reed used the material in these essays to write a work of fiction, readers would have found it believable? Or are the stories included here a case of "truth is stranger than fiction"? Give examples of some of the more outlandish—but true—tales found in the book.
12. Is there anything else about the South you wish you knew and would you prefer to learn it from fiction or nonfiction?
13. If you know the South well, do you think Reed has given an accurate portrait of its peculiarities? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Lit: A Memoir
Mary Karr, 2009
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060596996
Summary
Mary Karr’s bestselling, unforgettable sequel to her beloved memoirs The Liars’ Club and Cherry—and one of the most critically acclaimed books of the year—Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live.
The Boston Globe calls Lit a book that “reminds us not only how compelling personal stories can be, but how, in the hands of a master, they can transmute into the highest art." The New York Times Book Review calls it “a master class on the art of the memoir” in its Top 10 Books of 2009 Citation. Michiko Kakutani calls it “a book that lassos you, hogties your emotions and won’t let you go” in her New York Times review. And Susan Cheever states, simply, that Lit is “the best book about being a woman in America I have read in years."
In addition to the New York Times, Lit was named a Best Book of 2009 by the New Yorker (Reviewer Favorite), Entertainment Weekly (Top 10), Time (Top 10), the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, Slate, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Seattle Times. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 16, 1955
• Where—Groves, Texas, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Goddard College
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—teaches English at Syracuse University.
Mary Karr is an American poet, essayist, and memoirist. She rose to fame in 1995 with the publication of her bestselling memoir The Liars' Club. She is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University and, in 2015, was chosen to deliver the commencement speech at the university.
Memoirs
Her memoir The Liars' Club, published in 1995, was a New York Times bestseller for over a year and was named one of the year's best books. It delves vividly and often humorously into her deeply troubled childhood, most of which was spent in a gritty industrial section of Southeast Texas in the 1960s. She was encouraged to write her personal history by her friend Tobias Wolff, but has said she only took up the project when her marriage fell apart.
She followed the book with another memoir, Cherry (2000), about her late adolescence and early womanhood.
A third memoir Lit details her "journey from blackbelt sinner and lifelong agnostic to unlikely Catholic," came out in 2009. She writes about her time as an alcoholic and the salvation she found in her conversion to Catholicism. She does, however, describe herself as a cafeteria Catholic.
In 2015 Karr published The Art of Memoir. Based on her writing class syllabus at Syracuse, the book is aimed at novice writers yet may also appeal to the general public for its humor and for its insights into the writing process. The book includes an extensive list of Karr's recommended memoirs in the appendix.
Poetry and essays on poetry
Karr won a 1989 Whiting Award for her poetry. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry in 2005 and has won Pushcart prizes for both her poetry and her essays. Karr has published four volumes of poetry: Abacus (1987), The Devil's Tour (1993), Viper Rum (1998), and Sinners Welcome (2006). Her poems have appeared in major literary magazines such as Poetry, New Yorker, and Atlantic Monthly.
Karr's Pushcart Award winning essay, "Against Decoration." was published in the quarterly review Parnassus (1991). The essay argues for content over poetic style—insisting that emotions need to be expressed directly and with clarity. She criticized the use of obscure characters, imprecise or "foggy" descriptions of the physical world, and "showy, over-used references. She also holds that abstruse language—polysyllables, archaic words, intricate syntax, "yards of adjectives"—serve only as an obstacle to readers' understanding.
Karr directly criticized well-known, well-connected, and award-winning poets such as James Merrill, Amy Clampitt, Vijay Seshadri, and Rosanna Warren (daughter of Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Penn Warren). Karr favors controlled elegance to create transcendent poetic meaning out of not-quite-ordinary moments, presenting James Merrill's "Charles on Fire" as a successful example.
Another essay, "Facing Altars: Poetry and Prayer," was published in Poetry (2005). Karr tells of her move from agnostic alcoholic to baptized Catholic of the decidedly "cafeteria" kind, yet one who prays twice daily with loud fervor from her "foxhole." In the essay Karr argues that poetry and prayer arise from the same sources within us.
Personal life
In the 90s, Karr dated David Foster Wallace, who once tried to push her out of a moving car.
Awards and honors
1989 - Whiting Award
1995 - PEN/Martha Albrand Award for The Liars' Club
2005 - Guggenheim Fellowship. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/30/2015.)
Book Reviews
Searing.... [Karr] has written a book that lassos you, hogties your emotions and won't let you go. It's a memoir that traces the author's descent into alcoholism and her conflicted, piecemeal return from that numb hell—a memoir that explores the subjectivity of memory even as it chronicles with searching intelligence, humor and grace the author's slow, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes painful discovery of her vocation and her voice as a poet and writer…the book is every bit as absorbing as Ms. Karr's devastating 1995 memoir, The Liars' Club, which secured her place on the literary map.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
You always knew Mary Karr wasn't telling you everything. There were tantalizing hints of adult life in her two coming-of-age memoirs, The Liars' Club and Cherry. But Lit is the book in which she grows up and gets serious, as serious as motherhood, as serious as alcoholism, as serious as God. And it just makes her funnier. In a gravelly, ground-glass-under-your-heel voice that can take you from laughter to awe in a few sentences, Karr has written the best book about being a woman in America I have read in years.
Susan Cheever - New York Times Book Review
If the first two volumes of her memoirs strutted, this one proceeds more modestly: Karr is full of regret, but she's also as funny as ever on the subject of her own sinning. Although these pages sometimes strain for effect…the language often captures, precisely, the tension between the intellectual and the emotional, the artistic and the spiritual. This is a story not just of alcoholism but of coming to terms with families past and present, with a needy self, with a spiritual longing Karr didn't even know she possessed. It sounds as if she was hellish to be around for much of the time she describes here, but she is certainly good company now.
Valier Sayers - Washington Post
Karr performs her brave memoir about alcoholism, getting sober, and getting God in a confident Texas drawl. Readers familiar with The Liar's Club, Karr's account of her childhood will find parallels—her descent into alcoholism differs from her mother's addiction only in the details. Karr revisits her past with rare candor and humor, recounting her role in the disintegration of her marriage to “Warren Whitbread,” the reserved scion of a fabulously wealthy family (whose other members are deliciously skewered here), and her most shameful moments (leaving her feverish toddler to take a long swig from the bottle of Jack Daniels stashed in the oven). When Karr undergoes a hard-won spiritual awakening through the combined efforts of AA; her spiritual director, Joan the Bone; and a stay in the “Mental Marriott,” listeners will be cheering.
Publishers Weekly
Currently an award-winning, best-selling memoirist who described herself as an "on-my-knees [Catholic] spouter of praise" in a 2007 New York Times blog interview, Karr (The Liars' Club; Cherry) narrowly escaped a troubled upbringing and early adulthood that included alcoholic, psychotic parents, being raped as a child, and her own descent into alcoholism. She describes hitting rock bottom—an event that marked her transformation into the mother she was trying to escape—and her subsequent conversion to Catholicism in addition to the maturation of her writing style. The writing here sometimes seems affected, but her tale is riveting, her style clear-eyed and frank. That Karr survived the emotional and physical journey she regales her readers with to become the evenhanded, self-disciplined writer she is today is arguably nothing short of a miracle, and readers of her previous two books won't be disappointed. Verdict: This latest installment of Karr's autobiographical saga is essential for fans of lurid, meaty memoirs. —Megan Hodge, Randolph-Macon Coll. Lib., Ashland, VA
Library Journal
Acclaimed poet and bestselling memoirist Karr (English Literature/Syracuse Univ.; Sinners Welcome: Poems, 2006, etc.) deftly covers a vast stretch of her life-age 17 to her present 50. The author picks up where her 2000 memoir Cherry left off-escaping her toxic childhood in small-town Texas for the California coast. Quickly bored, and realizing it was a mistake to turn her back on higher education, Karr secured loans and sought the book-lined security of the college campus. Most of the scenes that unfold from here, unlike those from her eccentric childhood, are more familiar: the college student desperate to manifest her intellect; the poor country girl trying to prove to her rich WASP dinner hosts that she's worthy of their son; a sleep-deprived new mom with a pot roast to cook; the AA newcomer who thinks she doesn't really have a problem; the sinful skeptic arriving at faith. The difference, though, is the way in which Karr renders these stories. She still writes with a singular combination of poetic grace and Texan verve, which allows her to present the experiences as fresh, but she also brings a potent, self-condemning honesty and a palpable sense of responsibility and regret to the narrative. These elements were necessarily absent from her previous memoirs, in which there were plenty of adults to blame; she is writing from a significantly different place now. Her confessional of outrunning her past only to encounter the same monsters, before being saved by prayer and love for her son, is richer for it. Karr also provides fascinating anecdotes from her experiences as a writer, especially her time at Harvard and the emotional publication of her universally praised debut memoir, The Liars' Club (1995). Will ring as true in American-lit classrooms as in church support groups-an absolute gem that secures Karr's place as one of the best memoirists of her generation.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The first sentence of Lit is "Any way I tell this story is a lie." What does Mary mean by this? Is she a reliable storyteller? Is there a story in your family famous for its different versions? Is there a story you can't tell without "feeling" like it's partially untrue?
2. Mary refers to her mother as "a shadow stitched" to her feet, and to herself and her mother as "dovetailing drunks" and as facing off "like a pair of mirrors". What does this say about Mary's relationship with her mother? Do all women feel this way about their moms? At what age is it most painful? At what age—if any—does it end?
3. Mary writes, "I sense the oppressive weight of my old self inside me pressing to run wild again. My old mother I'm trying to keep in." Have you ever found yourself wincing at how you resemble your mother?
4. How is Mary's trip to college with Mother the "hairpin", as she describes it, in her early life? This trip marks her introduction to real drinking, but it's also the point at which Mary would "start furnishing [Mother] with reading instead of the other way around." What does Mary mean by this, and what's the significance of this transition? Was there an "official" transition to adulthood in your life? Was it marked by college, marriage, parenthood, career success, or something else?
5. "Words shape our realities," Mary concludes when she registers the meaning of the Ernst Cassirer quote: "The same function which the image of God performs, the same tendency to permanent existence, may be ascribed to the uttered sound of language". How does this realization frame Mary's determination to become a poet? At what times do religion and poetry seem to do the same things for her?
6. Mary calls poetry "one of the sole spiritual acts in our mostly godless household" and poets "the gods I worshipped all my life" Has literature ever substituted for spirituality with you? In what ways has it done so?
7. Mary describes Daddy as a silent fixture of her adolescence. How does her father's silence emerge, later, as a threatening force? How does her father's silence compare to the silence of the Whitbread's, and to Warren's characteristic reserve? If Mary understood early on that "words would define me, govern and determine me", then in what way is "wordlessness" her enemy?
8. Why does Mary call her time in recovery a "nervous breakthrough"? Have the darker times in your own life preceded or manifested similar changes or moments of clarity?
9. Mary has "mysterious blanks" in her memory of fights with Warren. What are the glaring blanks in your own memory? Do you think these are genuine blanks of memories or memories that you have chosen to block out?
10. In what ways does Mary's son Dev save her? If she had lost custody of him in a divorce, would she still have gotten sober? How have your children made you better, at time, or ground you to a nub in others?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
Jon Krakauer, 2003
Knopf Doubleday
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400032808
In Brief
Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits.
He now shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders, taking readers inside isolated American communities where some 40,000 Mormon Fundamentalists still practice polygamy.
Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl.
Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 2, 1954
• Where—Brookline, Massachusetts, USA
• Reared—Corvalis, Oregon
• Education—B.S., Hampshire College (Massachusetts)
• Awards—American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1999
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington
Krakauer was born as the third of five children. He competed in tennis at Corvallis High School and graduated in 1972. He went on to study at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where in 1976 he received his degree in Environmental Studies. In 1977, he met former climber Linda Mariam Moore; they married in 1980 and now live in Seattle, Washington.
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In 1974, Krakauer was part of a group of seven friends pioneering the Arrigetch Peaks of the Brooks Range in Alaska and was invited by American Alpine Journal to write about those experiences. Though he neither expected nor received a fee, he was excited when the Journal published his article. A year later, he and two others made the second ascent of The Moose's Tooth, a highly technical peak in the Alaska Range.
One year after graduating from college (1977), he spent three weeks by himself in the wilderness of the Stikine Icecap region of Alaska and climbed a new route on the Devils Thumb, an experience he described in Eiger Dreams and in Into the Wild.
Much of Krakauer's early popularity as a writer came from being a journalist for Outside magazine. In 1983, he was able to abandon part-time work as a fisherman and a carpenter to become a full-time writer. His freelance writing appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Magazine, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Architectural Digest.
Into the Wild was published in 1996 and secured Krakauer's reputation as an outstanding adventure writer, spending more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, which was adapted for film (director Sean Penn) and released in 2007.
In 2003, Under the Banner of Heaven became Krakauer's third non-fiction bestseller. The book examines extremes of religious belief, particularly fundamentalist offshoots of Mormonism. The book inspired the documentary, Damned to Heaven.
2010 saw the publication of Where Men Win Glory, about former NFL football player Pat Tillman, who became a US Army Ranger after 9/11. Tillman was eventually killed in action under suspicious circumstances in Afghanistan. (Adapated from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
In collecting evidence, Mr. Krakauer ventures out to a lunatic fringe of polygamous self-appointed prophets, where the Mormons and the Martians are almost interchangeable.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Dan and Ron Lafferty saw their quest for security and stature frustrated and then found someone to blame—a description that, in one sense or another, applies to Mohamed Atta, Timothy McVeigh and the Columbine killers. Under the Banner of Heaven is an arresting portrait of depravity that may have broader relevance than the author intended.
Robert Wright - New York Times Book Review
Under the Banner of Heaven is not likely to be popular in Utah or other LDS sanctuaries. Perhaps it will inspire backlash books highlighting the violent and tawdry details of Gentile (non-Mormon) faiths. None has a pristine history. This is a chilling book, slowed occasionally by the sheer number of names to recall and relationships to connect, and the somewhat awkward juxtaposition of current events and remote history—not a beach book but rather a tour de force that must be read carefully and savored.
Ann Rule - Washington Post
The split between the Fundamentalists and the official Mormon church is the backdrop for Jon Krakauer's new book, Under the Banner of Heaven, in which he explores the fanatical fringe of Mormonism and the nexus between extremist faith and predatory violence through the story of a bone-chilling double murder committed in 1984 in the heart of Mormon country.
Emily Bazelon - Los Angeles Times
Using as a focal point the chilling story of offshoot Mormon fundamentalist brothers Dan and Ron Lafferty, who in 1984 brutally butchered their sister-in-law and 15-month-old niece in the name of a divine revelation, Krakauer explores what he sees as the nature of radical Mormon sects with Svengali-like leaders. Using mostly secondary historical texts and some contemporary primary sources, Krakauer compellingly details the history of the Mormon church from its early 19th-century creation by Joseph Smith (whom Krakauer describes as a convicted con man) to its violent journey from upstate New York to the Midwest and finally Utah, where, after the 1890 renunciation of the church's holy doctrine sanctioning multiple marriages, it transformed itself into one of the world's fastest-growing religions. Through interviews with family members and an unremorseful Dan Lafferty (who is currently serving a life sentence), Krakauer chronologically tracks what led to the double murder, from the brothers' theological misgivings about the Mormon church to starting their own fundamentalist sect that relies on their direct communications with God to guide their actions. According to Dan's chilling step-by-step account, when their new religion led to Ron's divorce and both men's excommunication from the Mormon church, the brothers followed divine revelations and sought to kill, starting with their sister-in-law, those who stood in the way of their new beliefs. Relying on his strong journalistic and storytelling skills, Krakauer peppers the book with an array of disturbing firsthand accounts and news stories (such as the recent kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart) of physical and sexual brutality, which he sees as an outgrowth of some fundamentalists' belief in polygamy and the notion that every male speaks to God and can do God's bidding. While Krakauer demonstrates that most nonfundamentalist Mormons are community oriented, industrious and law-abiding, he poses some striking questions about the closed-minded, closed-door policies of the religion-and many religions in general.
Publishers Weekly
In 1984, Brenda Lafferty and her baby daughter Erica were found murdered in their Utah home, victims of a "removal revelation" that her Mormon brother-in-law had supposedly received from God. Krakauer (Into Thin Air) aims to explain why and how this crime happened by recounting the history of Mormonism from its conception by Joseph Smith in the 19th century and tracing the origins of its extremist sects through to the present day. Using current examples, Krakauer reveals that there are fundamentalist communities throughout North America and that although these sects are not recognized by the accepted Latter-day Saints (LDS) church (mainly because they still practice polygamy), they are able to exist unchecked by both the church and the U.S. government. The author's chronicle of the Mormon religion and its extremist offshoot is tempered by the very real and tangible story of Lafferty and her baby, whose lives were, in effect, taken by a fundamentalist faith. Krakauer, admittedly just trying to get to the heart of religious extremism, remains as impartial as possible toward his elusive and controversial subject, but the result is still unnerving. A thoroughly engrossing and ultimately startling comment on all fundamentalist ideas; for public libraries. — Rachel Collins.
Library Journal
The jarring story of a double murder committed by fundamentalist Mormons, told with raw narrative force and tight focus. Yet this is far more than just the retelling of a grisly murder, for Krakauer (Into Thin Air, 1997) would like to know what was going on in the heads of the men, Dan and Ron Lafferty, when they killed Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter Erica (who happened to be their sister-in-law and niece, respectively), and why Dan, in particular, could be so equi-poised when talking of the event as to display an utter lack of remorse. Finding out requires an extended journey through the world of Mormonism, its history and schisms, and by extension the history of its expansion over the western half of the country. Fundamentalist Mormons differ from mainstream Latter-day Saints in many ways, but their practice of polygamy, notions of blood atonement (revenge), and belief in the importance of personal revelation-their listening to that "still small voice" of God, once a hallmark of Joseph Smith's religion, until he realized it would compromise his authority in matters of church doctrine-made them outlaws in the eyes of the establishment Mormons. Dan's "yearning to return to the mythical order and perfection of the original church," one that had been corrupted by the church hierarchy for years now, led him to fundamentalism, which in turn led him to believe his brother Ron's revelations: that Brenda and Erica must die for the good of the Lord's work (that Brenda encouraged Ron's wife to leave him may have played, let's say, a small role in the revelation). Krakauer worms deeply into the Mormon religious experience, its fractures, violence, and fight against the growing power of the central government. At the moment "when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination," then "all bets are suddenly off." Krakauer lays the portent on beautifully, building his tales carefully from the ground up until they irresistibly, spookily combust.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In his prologue, Jon Krakauer writes that the aim of his book is to "cast some light on Lafferty and his ilk," which he concedes is a daunting but useful task for what it may tell us "about the roots of brutality, perhaps, but even more for what might be learned about the nature of faith" [p. XXIII]. What does the book reveal about fanatics such as Ron and Dan Lafferty? What does it reveal about brutality and faith and the connections between them?
2. Why does Krakauer move back and forth between Mormon history and contemporary events? What are the connections between the beliefs and practices of Joseph Smith and his followers in the nineteenth century and the behavior of people like Dan and Ron Lafferty, Brian David Mitchell, and others in the twentieth?
3. Prosecutor David Leavitt argued that "People in the state of Utah simply do not understand, and have not understood for fifty years, the devastating effect that the practice of polygamy has on young girls in our society" [p. 24]. How does polygamy affect young girls? Is it, as Leavitt claims, pedophilia plain and simple?
4. Joseph Smith claimed that the doctrine of polygamy was divinely inspired. What earthly reasons might also explain Smith's attraction to having plural wives?
5. When Krakauer asks Dan Lafferty if he has considered the parallels between himself and Osama bin Laden, Dan asserts that bin Laden is a "child of the Devil" and that the hijackers were "following a false prophet," whereas he is following a true prophet [p. 321]. No doubt, bin Laden would say much the same of Lafferty. How are Dan Lafferty and Osama bin Laden alike? In what ways are all religious fundamentalists alike?
6. Krakauer asks: "if Ron Lafferty were deemed mentally ill because he obeyed the voice of God, isn't everyone who believes in God and seeks guidance through prayer mentally ill as well?" [p. 297] Given the nature of, and motive for, the murders of Brenda Lafferty and her child, should Ron Lafferty be considered mentally ill? If so, should all others who "talk to God" or receive revelations--a central tenant of Mormonism—also be considered mentally ill? What would the legal ramifications be of such a shift in thought?
7. Krakauer begins part III with a quote from Bertrand Russell, who asserts that "every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world" [p. 191]. Is this a fair and accurate statement? What historical examples support it? What improvements in humane feeling and social justice has the Mormon church opposed?
8. How are mainstream and fundamentalist Mormons likely to react to Krakauer's book?
9. Much of Under the Banner of Heaven explores the tensions between freedom of religion and governmental authority. How should these tensions be resolved? How can the state allow religious freedom to those who place obedience to God's will above obedience to secular laws?
10. Joseph Smith called himself "a second Mohammed," and Krakauer quotes George Arbaugh who suggests that Mormonism's "aggressive theocratic claims, political aspirations, and use of force, make it akin to Islam" [p. 102]. What other similarities exist between the Mormon and Islamic faiths?
11. How should Joseph Smith be understood: as a delusional narcissist, a con man, or "an authentic religious genius" [p. 55], as Harold Bloom claims?
12. Krakauer suggests that much of John Wesley Powell's book, The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, particularly his account of his dealings with the Shivwit Indians, should be regarded with a "healthy dose of skepticism," and that it embellishes and omits important facts [p. 245]. Is Krakauer himself a trustworthy guide to the events he describes in Under the Banner of Heaven? Are his writing and his judgments fair and reasonable? What makes them so?
13. What patterns emerge from looking at Mormon history? What do events like the Mountain Meadow massacre and the violence between Mormons and gentiles in Missouri and Illinois suggest about the nature of Mormonism? Have Mormons been more often the perpetrators or the victims of violence?
14. At the very end of the book, former Mormon fundamentalist DeLoy Bateman says that while the Mormon fundamentalists who live within Colorado City may be happier than those who live outside it, he believes that "some things in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself" [p. 334]. Why does Krakauer end the book this way? In what ways are Mormons not free to think for themselves? Is such freedom more important than happiness?
(Questions provided by publisher.)
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Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival
Dean King, 2010
Little, Brown & Co.
399 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316167086
Summary
In October 1934, the Chinese Communist Army found itself facing annihilation, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Nationalist soldiers. Rather than surrender, 86,000 Communists embarked on an epic flight to safety. Only thirty were women. Their trek would eventually cover 4,000 miles over 370 days.
Under enemy fire they crossed highland awamps, climbed Tibetan peaks, scrambled over chain bridges, and trudged through the sands of the western deserts. Fewer than 10,000 of them would survive, but remarkably all of the women would live to tell the tale.
Unbound is an amazing story of love, friendship, and survival written by a new master of adventure narrative. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Richmond, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; M.A., New
York University
• Currently—lives in Richmond, Virginia
Dean King is the author of numerous books, including Unbound: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival (2010), and the highly acclaimed biography Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed. King has also written for many publications, including Men's Journal, Esquire, Outside, New York magazine, and the New York Times. He lives in Richmond, Virginia. (From the pubisher and Wikipedia.)
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The award winning author of ten books and dozens of stories in national magazines, Dean King has a deep and abiding passion for historical and adventure narratives. His earliest works—A Sea of Words; Harbors and High Seas; and Every Man Will Do His Duty—are companion books to Patrick O'Brian's monumental Aubry-Maturin novel series and are the first and most popular companion books to the 20-novel series.
King wrote a groundbreaking biography of O'Brian, published just three month's after O'Brian's death in Dublin—Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed (2000). King appeared in a BBC documentary about O'Brian and on ABC World News Tonight and NPR's Talk of the Nation.
King followed this biography with the national bestseller Skeletons on the Zahara (2004), which tells the true story of the shipwreck of a Connecticut merchant brig Commerce on the west coast of Africa in 1815. The crew was enslaved on the desert by nomadic Arabs and had to travel 800 miles across the Sahara to reach freedom. Based on the memoirs of Captain James Riley and sailor Archibald Robbins, which King discovered in the New York Yacht Club library, and translated into ten languages, Skeletons was a multiple book of the year selection, the basis of a feature in National Geographic Adventure and a two-hour special documentary on the History Chanel. It is currently being developed as a feature film in London.
Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival, about the 30 courageous women who walked 4,000 miles across China with Mao Zedong, in 1934, was published in 2010. While crossing eleven provinces, the 30 women forded dozens of raging rivers, scaled ice-covered peaks on the Tibetan Plateau, and survived ambushes, bombings, severe hunger and thirst, typhoid fever, and the births of half a dozen children. Their epic march helped reshape China forever. Daniel A. Metraux, professor of Asian Studies at Mary Baldwin College wrote that "Unbound is a must read for any student of modern Chinese history and ranks with Red Star Over China as one of the classic narratives of the early days of the CCP.”
In addition to his books, King is a past director of book publishing at National Review, an original contributing editor to Men's Journal, and the founder of Bubba Magazine. He has contributed stories to Book Marks, Esquire, Men's Journal, National Geographic Adventure, New York, New York Times, Outside, Travel + Leisure, and the Daily Telegraph.
An avid hiker, King likes to clear his mind on cross-country treks. He writes:
I took my first major walk—190 miles coast to coast in England—in 1986 after escaping a tedious temporary job as sales clerk in a London Tie-Rack. The job made the open air all the more glorious, even if the cloud ceiling was about head high almost every day. Ever since then, my friend, Rob, an English investment banker, and I plan walks whenever we can. Various friends sign on for these no-frills holidays. On our first journey, we followed Alf Wainwright’s route through the North York Moors (stark and lovely like the end of the world), the Yorkshire Dales (where we encountered horizontal sheets of rain), and the Lake District (lush hills with rocky tops ringing with their literary inspiration). It was so much fun, we did it again in 2000.
In between, we walked Offa’s Dyke (160 rugged and breathtaking miles along the Welsh-English border) in 1987; Pilgrim’s Way, from Winchester, once the political center of England, to Canterbury, then the ecclesiastical center of England, with my wife and a friend in 1989; and the Tour du Mont Blanc, which takes you through Switzerland, France and England, in 1993. The toughest walk we have tackled was the Walkers' Haute Route, from Zermatt to Chamonix, in 1996. Each morning began with a brutal uphill stretch. One friend finally had to take a bus and meet us ahead.
In 1987, King and his wife, Jessica King, and some friends tackled the one-day Round Manhattan Walk (about 36 miles), about which King says, “The battering of walking on the pavement all day left me sorer than the New York Marathon would a few years later.” Other favorite journeys include the Mont Ventoux midnight climb, in France, the Na Pali Coast, in Kauai, Hawaii, and a series of inn-to-inn walks that Dean did for Mid-Atlantic Country Magazine: From Back Bay, Virginia, to the Outer Banks of North Carolina along the Allegheny Trail in West Virginia"; and on the Delaware River Trail, 1994.
In 1999, Dean sailed as a sailor trainee on board the tallship HMS Rose from New York to Bermuda. And in 2001, he retraced Captain James Riley’s route on foot and on camelback through Western Sahara, which informed his book Skeletons on the Zahara.
Dean is a founder, past co-chair, and advisory board member of the James River Writers organization, which sponsors the annual James River Writers Conference in Richmond, Virginia. Held on the first weekend of October at the Library of Virginia in historic downtown Richmond, the conference is known for its relaxed and collegial atmosphere as well as for its noteable guests. (Excerpted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Unbound recounts the amazing journey that 30 women and 86,000 men took in an effort to escape Chaing Kai-shek's advancing soldiers...Threading the narratives of the women's individual stories, women's place in China at the time, and the progress of the March with an overall picture of modern Chinese history, King gives readers a unique look at a turning point for [China].
Olivia Flores Alvarez - Houston Press
Dean King's book is deeply researched, drawing from first-person accounts of survivors, Chinese historians and a range of historical scholarship, much of it never before translated into English...Never idealizing the story of the soldiers, Unbound renders, with thrilling precision, their fear and uncertainty.
Nora Nahid Khan - New Haven Advocate
Fascinating.... King, the best-selling author of Skeletons on the Zahara, has done brilliant work bringing the march to life with a plethora of vivid, well-researched details.... Unbound is an authoritative account of the Long March, but its evocations of the marchers' experiences will linger long after the historical details slip from readers' memories.
Doug Childers - Richmond Times-Dispatch
China has always been a mysterious and secretive empire, but Unbound peels back the curtain to reveal a story of strength and survival.
John T. Slania - Bookpage
In 1934, following threats by the Chinese Nationalists to destroy their village in remote southeastern China, 30 women fled with Mao Tse-tung’s Red Army.... King spent five years retracing their trek and interviewing survivors and historians to offer a very human account of an event that has loomed large in Chinese history. —Vanessa Bush
Booklist
King (Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival), a prolific writer of adventure and exploration stories, here transports readers to Mao Zedong's 1934–35 Long March, a trek to escape Chiang Kai-shek's superior forces. The arduous but successful march is a heroic founding myth of the People's Republic of China, perhaps comparable with Washington at Valley Forge. Some have recently challenged its truth, but most scholars accept the basic story even while doubting parts. There are many books on the subject, but King focuses on the women marchers (several other books have done the same, however). King uses English-language scholarship, translations by research assistants, interviews, and his own travels along the route to tell lively stories, but since there were comparatively few of these women, the narrative strains and jumps back and forth between their individual stories, women in China, the progress of the march, and the big picture of modern Chinese history. Verdict: This energetic book will appeal most to readers with less initial knowledge of China. —Charles Hayford, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL
Library Journal
Journalist King (Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival, 2004) follows the 30 remarkable women who endured the Red Army's legendary Long March. The word "unbound" in the title reflects the radical communist message espoused by early leaders like Mao Zedong that women long suppressed in Chinese society—their feet broken and bound, married off as children, reduced to lives as chattel and servants—had important roles as soldiers and reformers in the new revolutionary movement. The Communists effectively infiltrated the peasant villages with their message, and girls leaped at the chance to flee their blunted status. When Mao masterminded the movement of the hugely unwieldy 86,000-man guerrilla army from its encirclement by the Nationalists in Jiangxi in October 1934, 30 of the strongest women—some teenagers—were selected to accompany the men. Their job was largely to care for the convalescents in the mobile hospital unit. King traces their yearlong trek from Ruijin, across southwestern China, then northward, within the First Army, which was headed by Mao and later splintered into other units such as the Fourth Army, headed by the renegade Zhang Guotao. Eventually the armies converged in Sichuan in June 1935. After nearly 4,000 miles, decimated by disease, lack of adequate food, exposure and attrition, many of the group perished. Some of the women had to give birth along the way, then abandon their children to peasant families. The terrain was unbelievably harsh, and they faced Nationalist and Tibetan skirmishes along the way. King pursues the sad irony of these women's fates through the Cultural Revolution, when many of the early heroines—whom he depicts in photos and mini-biographies—were persecuted and destroyed. A terrific feminist story and a significant document of this incredible human feat.
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 these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Unbound:
1. How would you describe the condition of women—rich or poor—in China prior to the Communist revolution? Talk about the ways in which the communists changed the lives of Chinese women.
2. If you've you read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, does Lisa See's book provide a backstory for the real historical events in Unbound?
3. How did you feel about the fact that these marchers underwent bombing by Americans? What was the American position toward Mao Zedong?
4. What aspects of Long March did you find most horrific—the terrain, the weather, the constant attacks? What deprivations were hardest to read about?
5. If you had been one of the women, would you have been able to leave your newborn behind?
6. Is there one particular woman, whose story...or voice... you find more compelling than the others?
7. What roles did the women play during their march? What did you find most admirable? To what do you attribute their remarkable feat of endurance—what is the foundation of their strength?
8. Care to make a comment on the fact that by the end of the trek, all 30 women were still alive...while only 1 out of 10 men survived? Any comparisons to those of us living in the 21st century—would any among us have the commitment or strength to endure such hardship?
9. In what way does King show that the problems (suspicion and paranoia) that plagued the later Communists were already present during the 1934-35 march?
10. Talk about the terrible irony of the Cultural Revolution and how it affected the lives of these 30 women?
11. What have you learned about Chinese history that you were unaware of before reading Unbound? Have you gained a different perspective on China, its history, government, and people after having read the book?
12. Author Dean King has said that in the book he...
wants the reader to walk down the trails with these women, to witness the challenges they faced, to cross the rivers, to climb the mountains, nursing one another and nursing the men.
Does King achieve that goal? Does he bring this brutal trek alive for readers, sitting in the comfort of our armchairs?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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