Synopses & Reviews
Set against the backdrop of two neighboring Southern towns,
Sufficient Grace is the powerful, affecting story of two families over the course of a year, from one Easter season to the next.
One quiet spring day, Gracie Hollaman hears voices in her head that tell her to get in her car and leave her entire life behind -- her home, her husband, her daughter, her very identity. Gracie's subsequent journey releases her genius for painting and effects profound changes in the lives of everyone around her.
A spellbinding work, Sufficient Grace explores the power of personal transformation and redemption, and the many ordinary and extraordinary ways they come to pass through faith, love, motherhood, art, even food. This poignant, poetic study of the human condition affirms the enduring importance of relationships and the strength we derive from them, even though we sometimes have to leave behind an old identity in order to discover our soul.
Beautifully paced, filled with unforgettable characters, Sufficient Grace reveals the vital place that spirit and belonging have in every inner life -- and in the everyday world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DARNELL ARNOULT was born and raised in Henry County, Virginia. She lived for twenty years in Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina, where she received a BA in American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MA in English and Creative Writing from North Carolina State University and worked at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. She is also the author of What Travels With Us: Poems, published by Louisiana State University Press and winner of the Appalachian Studies Association's Weatherford Award. Her fiction and poetry have been published in a variety of journals, and she has taught creative writing to adults for over fifteen years. She and her husband live on a small farm near Nashville, Tennessee.
Visit the author at www.darnellarnoult.com
Review
"Tennessee is blessed with a growing number of outstanding writers. While each has a distinctive voice, their work often invites comparison to other writers. Arnoult brings to mind the work of Flannery O'Connor...Poignant...This wonderful story...is truly one of the literary highlights of this summer." -- The Tennessean
Review
"If I were to tell you everything that's humane, witty, smart, touching, captivating in this book, I would be hoarse." -- Judy Goldman, author of Early Leaving
Review
"Engaging debut novel...Her lyrical gifts...portray a range of interesting, offbeat characters that readers will find themselves rooting for as they struggle to stay in the present while letting the past take care of itself." -- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Review
"In brisk scenes, Arnoult's rhythmic prose beautifully reveals the human potential for unconditional love and faith, and wholly convinces us -- despite the heartache her mental illness causes -- of Gracie's essential wisdom and worthiness." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"A complex tale of Southern love and life, one with many layers...The shades blend together to create the most unusual, and impressionable, characters." -- Clarion Ledger (Jackson, MS)
Review
"Arnoult knows the frailty of the human spirit, its hungers and failings...[a] fine first novel...Arnoult captures African-American speech beautifully as well as Southern dialogue without phonic spelling. Arnoult's themes of family and faith, of food and various hungers are satisfying." -- The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)
Review
"A complex tale of Southern love and life, one with many layers...The shades blend together to create the most unusual, and impressionable, characters."
-- Clarion Ledger (Jackson, MS)
Review
"Sufficient Grace examines both the nature of love and kinds of nurture we all hunger for. Arnoult invites us to a feast of love, a kind of communion." --Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls
Review
"Sufficient Grace is both a blessing and a relief. It's a relief to read a novel about the deepest truths women share, which has everything to do with courage and dignity. It is also a blessing to be shown the inner core of our hearts by someone who knows us so well."
-- Kaye Gibbons, author of Ellen Foster
Review
"Sufficient Grace is the loving portrait of two families, one black and one white, their paths entwined by a woman who has lost her way in the world. In an unforgettable debut, Darnell Arnoult writes with a luminous energy that shines light in the intricacies of madness and of compassion. It is easy and satisfying to sink into the folds of this story told with humor, wisdom, and wonderful food."
-- Lynn York, author of The Piano Teacher
Review
"When Gracie Hollaman, the central character in Darnell Arnoult's luminous novel
Sufficient Grace, hears voices telling her to leave her home and seek a new life, she begins a journey into the narrow space between what is real and what is not, what is of this world and what is not, illuminating and altering the lives of everyone around her in the process. Arnoult's writing sings a hymn of praise to the possibility that dwells in shadows, the promise that waits within even the most broken among us, and the power of love in all its infinite variety. Once I started reading, I had no choice but to listen to the voices and follow where they led in this lyrical novel filled with magic and amazing grace."
-- Pamela Duncan, author of Moon Women
Review
"Sufficient Grace is a winner -- a bountiful, blessed tale, alive with insight, warmth, and humor. As many in the large cast of racially and age diverse characters in this satisfying, well-plotted story are brought from disappointment, madness, loss, and sometimes despair into connection, love, and art, the reader will want to cheer them and the author. Arnoult proves with this debut novel that she is an amazing storyteller who is going places."
-- Isabel Zuber, author of Salt
Review
"Darnell Arnoult writes about a people and a place from deep in her heart. She breathes life into her material, drawing us into her world, a world we do not want to leave at book's end. Sufficient Grace is Flannery O'Connor possessed by Emeril, laced with canny observations about the sweetness and alienation that is family. If I were to tell you everything that's humane, witty, smart, touching, captivating in this book, I would be hoarse." -- Judy Goldman, author of Early Leaving
Review
"Sufficient Grace is a showcase of memorable characters and Southern storytelling at its finest. It also speaks to the theme of art and how it comes to life through the generations that feed into the life and history of the artist. An accomplished, moving novel, it marks the beginning of what I hope will be a long and productive career." -- Jill McCorkle, author of Crash Diet
Review
"Darnell Arnoult's Sufficient Grace reminds me of Harriett Arnow's The Dollmaker and Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies. It's a big story full of just about everything: good food, history, religion, medicine, family, and fun. It's too good to have come from a new kid on the block, but it has and it will be read and loved by many, many readers." -- Clyde Edgerton, author of In Memory of Junior
Review
"Darnell Arnoult gently slips her characters under the microscope, pulls out the hidden, examines the known and unknown, and allows the reader to connect to the love, loss, sadness, and comedic aspects that are within us all." -- Grace F. Edwards, author of the Mali Anderson series
Review
"A stunning debut of a novel, a Southern shout of Amen and Hallelujah." -- The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
Review
"In regional literature, 'Southern' and 'spiritual' often go hand in hand, and nowhere is that piquant association more radiantly portrayed than in Arnoult's debut novel, a transcendent exploration of the unrestrained vagaries of faith and the unexpected roads to redemption...With astute sensitivity, Arnoult bravely and generously endows her formidable characters with charming candor and perceptive humanity in an elegiac yet hopeful tale of elegant strength, serene love, and infectious desire. Deeply felt." -- Booklist
Review
"Southern culture and religion are themes interwoven in the story...and... redemption comes in unexpected ways." -- KnoxNews
Synopsis
Set against the backdrop of two neighboring Southern towns,
Sufficient Grace is the powerful, affecting story of two families over the course of a year, from one Easter season to the next. One quiet spring day, Gracie Hollaman hears voices in her head that tell her to get in her car and leave her entire life behind -- her home, her husband, her daughter, her very identity. Gracie's subsequent journey releases her genius for painting and effects profound changes in the lives of everyone around her.
A spellbinding work, Sufficient Grace explores the power of personal transformation and redemption, and the many ordinary and extraordinary ways they come to pass through faith, love, motherhood, art, even food. This poignant, poetic study of the human condition affirms the enduring importance of relationships and the strength we derive from them, even though we sometimes have to leave behind an old identity in order to discover our soul.
Beautifully paced, filled with unforgettable characters, Sufficient Grace reveals the vital place that spirit and belonging have in every inner life -- and in the everyday world.
About the Author
DARNELL ARNOULT was born and raised in Henry County, Virginia. She lived for twenty years in Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina, where she received a BA in American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MA in English and Creative Writing from North Carolina State University and worked at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. She is also the author of
What Travels With Us: Poems, published by Louisiana State University Press and winner of the Appalachian Studies Association's Weatherford Award. Her fiction and poetry have been published in a variety of journals, and she has taught creative writing to adults for over fifteen years. She and her husband live on a small farm near Nashville, Tennessee.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
INVITATION
1
OFFERTORY
57
PASSION
85
COMMITMENT
135
SUFFICIENT GRACE
191
SECOND OFFERING
249
BENEDICTION
281
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
301
Reading Group Guide
READING GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR SUFFICIENT GRACE Introduction
Description
One quiet spring day, Gracie Hollaman hears voices in her head that tell her to get in her car and leave her entire life behind -- her home, her husband, her daughter, her very identity. Gracie's subsequent journey will effect profound changes in the lives of everyone around her. Ultimately, her quest leads her into the home of Mama Toot and Mattie, two strong, accomplished women going through life changes of their own. As the bonds between these women grow stronger and the family Gracie left behind comes to terms with their loss, both worlds slowly and inevitably collide.
Discussion Questions
1. How would you characterize the voices that Gracie Hollaman hears as she prepares to leave her home forever? What do these voices suggest about Gracie's mental state, and in what ways do they connect to a religious framework?
2. "People say men have midlife crises, but it's the women." Why does Ed Hollaman initially interpret Gracie's disappearance as her abandonment of him? What does his reaction to her absence suggest about the nature of their marriage and their feelings for each other?
3. When Mattie Riley discovers Gracie Hollaman lying on Arty's grave,why does she see it as some kind of divine signal? How does Mattie's grief over her husband's untimely death affect her decision to take Gracie into her home?
4. How does Gracie's disappearance from their home improve Ed's life? What changes in his character and day-to-day existence seem especially dramatic or interesting? Given the uncertain circumstances of his marriage, to what extent are his feelings for Parva Wilson understandable?
5. In what ways is Mama Toot the "glue" that holds her family together? What explains Toot's delay in recognizing "Rachel" as the grown-up little girl, Gracie, whom she took care of so many years before? How does she make sense of Gracie's reappearance in her life?
6. How would you describe Ginger's reaction to her mother's schizophrenia? Why do you think that she fears for her own mental instability? What do you think of her boyfriend, Wally, and the prospects for their relationship?
7. In what ways do the characters experience the presence of Arty in the novel? Do you think he is really present? Why or why not?
8. Do you feel Mattie must choose between her grief over Arty's death and her burgeoning feelings for Norvis Dibner? Why or why not? Why do you think the author chose to conclude the novel before Mattie reaches closure with Arty's death and fully embraces her romantic interest in Norvis?
9. Why are Ed Hollaman and Mama Toot content with Gracie's desire to change her name to Rachel, divorce Ed, and return to live with the Riley family? How does Gracie's decision have an impact on both families?
10. Besides the close look at Ed and Gracie's relationship, in what other ways does the novel seem to address the idea of love and marriage?
11. How does the novel explore the concept of mothering? What about mother-daughter relationships in particular? What about the definition of family?
12. What is the significance of Tyrone's great-grandmother's prediction for his future? In what ways does the prediction come true?
13. We know Gracie becomes obsessed with closing the circle of her story with Ed. Where else do you see circles at play in the novel?
14. "They have been raised up to believe anything of God, to believe He can say your time is out no matter who loves you or how much." What role does faith play in the Riley family? To what extent does it play an important role for the Hollaman family?
15. Sister Reba and Gracie both feel "called" to make some of the same decisions. They both leave their families for a different, nontraditional life, a life with a focus they believe is defined by something beyond their own desires, even by God. They both retreat to the woods at times. Can you think of other common ground shared by Reba and Gracie? Why are these similarities viewed differently from one character to the other?
16. On a larger scale, how do you interpret the issues of faith and fate in the novel? Of miracles and coincidence? Of the thin gray line between a passionate, inspired calling and bona fide illness?
17. Why is food so important in Sufficient Grace? What does cooking represent to Mattie Riley? What does it symbolize for Ed Hollaman? What significance does it hold for the time frame of the novel? How does Sister Reba's sermon on leftovers apply throughout the book? How did the sensory descriptions of cooking and eating in Sufficient Grace affect your reading experience?
18. How did you interpret the title of the novel? In what way does the religious concept sufficient grace relate to events in the book?
19. Which character(s) in Sufficient Grace did you most identify with and why? Who is your favorite character and why? Do you think that there is a single "hero" or "heroine" in this novel? Why or why not?
Enhance Your Book Club 1. To read more about the inspired art Gracie Hollaman creates from everyday objects, visit http://www.outsiderart.info/.
2. Have you ever been tempted, like Ed Hollaman, to enter some of your best recipes into a cooking contest? Visit http://www.foodreference. com/html/recipecontests.html to learn more about ongoing contests and how you can show off your finest foods!
3. Gracie Hollaman is diagnosed with schizophrenia in Sufficient Grace. To understand more about the symptoms and treatments of this medical condition, visit this comprehensive website: http://www.schizophrenia.com/.