Synopses & Reviews
Thomass carefully built life has been shattered. Everywhere he turns, he finds tragedy. After being left at the altar, he retreats to a remote castle in the mountains of Northwest Montana to live with an old college friend dying of lupus. But their painfully peaceful seclusion is ripped apart by the news that Thomass brother, an Episcopal priest, has killed himself-and his sister-in-law is abandoning her seven-year-old daughter, Catherine, into Thomass care.
After her unexpected arrival into this grim corner of the world, Catherine slowly breaches the isolation and penetrates the self-absorption. Like the prayer wheel on the wall of a nearby convent, Catherine gently but surely pulls the various dying people around her into the robust company of the loving and living.
Catherine Wheels is a lyrical novel of hope and redemption, the honest story of men and women who have had all the zest for life knocked out of them-damaged souls who are slowly brought back to health by a little girl who knows something the rest of them either never knew or had forgotten: something about prayer, love, and sacrifice.
About the Author
Leif Peterson earned a BA in literature from Whitworth College and an MA in literature from the University of Colorado in Boulder. He was the publisher/editor of a literary magazine and fiction editor for Mars Hill Review. He lives with his wife and children in Northwest Montana where he raises pheasants and writes full time. This is his first novel.
Reading Group Guide
1. Throughout the book Thomas is grieving-for his brother, for his mother, for his failed marriage. All of us have experienced grief to some extent in our lives. Describe what it feels like to witness Thomas grief. Does his eventual comfort become your own?
2. Its Catherine, a nine-year-old girl, who slowly begins to pull the damaged souls around her back into the world of the living and loving. Why do you think Peterson chose a child to perform this function?
3. There are several things in the book that are either unexplained or unresolved. For instance, we never get to know who or what the young pregnant dancing girl is. We dont get to know why the statues of the saints are appearing. Normally leaving things unresolved in a book is taboo. Do you think this was done intentionally? If so, why?
4. Its basic to human nature to want to be able to explain things. On page 253 Clare tells Thomas, “…if we insist on understanding everything, well never get it. We need to simply do our best to live into it, and accept that we may never know what it all means.” Describe the conflict in your own life between wanting the answers and accepting the mystery.
5. On pages 253-254, Thomas tells Clare the story of the seven daughters of Atlas and how they were metamorphosed into stars. Its clear by this point that the characters in the book are undergoing their own metamorphosis. How is it happening? Is it their growing love for one another? Their experiences? Something else?
6. The theme of randomness versus being fated is brought up several times in the book. Do you believe your life is primarily a random course of events, or is it more determined than that? Does it have to be one or the other, or can it be both?
7. The Right Reverend Daniel Tuttle, who flourished in the late 1800's, once remarked that he engaged in a faith not afraid to reason and reason unashamed to adore. Discuss this idea in relationship to the characters in Catherine Wheels.
8. Throughout the book, Catherine tells stories of various saints. What do you think the purpose was for including this material? Is there a correlation between the stories of the saints and the stories of the characters in the book?
9. During the course of the book the characters move from one island (the castle) to another island (the one in the Caribbean). By the end, do you have any hope that theyve broken free of their isolationism?
10. There are two Catherine wheels in the book (one in Montana and one in the Caribbean). Is there a third? What role do they play?
11. What would you say the tone of this book is? How does the tone affect the story?
12. On page 79, after seeing a saint, Catherine tells Thomas, “My father had something to do with it.” On page 320, Thomas stands at the window and says, “Stephen, what do you want from me?” Again, on the last page of the book, Stephens presence is felt very strongly. In many ways, Stephens presence haunts the whole book. What affect does this have on you as a reader?
13. If you had to describe in two or three sentences what this book was about, how would you do it?