Synopses & Reviews
“Norman elegantly crafts a murder story that isn’t a mystery; a ghost story without shivers. At its heart, this is a bittersweet love story, about the hole left in a life.” — Seattle Times Sam Lattimore meets Elizabeth Church in 1970s Halifax, in an art gallery. Their brief, erotically charged marriage is extinguished with Elizabeth’s murder. Sam’s life afterward is complicated. In a moment of desperate confusion, he sells his life story to a Norwegian filmmaker named Istvakson, known for the stylized violence of his films, whose artistic drive sets in motion an increasingly intense cat-and-mouse game between the two men. Furthermore, Sam has begun “seeing” Elizabeth—not only seeing but holding conversations with her, almost every evening, and what at first seems simply hallucination born of terrible grief reveals itself, evening by evening, as something else entirely.
“Beautifully and carefully written and unique, its meaning both elegant and elusive.” — Ann Beattie
“Compelling and satisfying. Howard Norman has written a complex literary novel and a page-turner that’s impossible to put down.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Quirky and probing . . . riveting . . . sexy.” — Washington Post
Review
"A work of immense poise and dignity, but warmth and humor, too... This is definitely one of the most charming - but strongly textured - novels anyone will read in a long while." Booklist, ALA
"Fiztgerald is a deft and nimble writer...[who] displays the English gift for understatement. Her apt phrases are tossed off casually; her humor is flicked at us airily. [At Freddie's] is intriguing to the end." The Washington Post
"Mrs. Fitzgerald's special talent is stylistic, a mannered comic dryness that relishes absurdities without dwelling on them too long: she moves at speed, is full of dry observations and inventions, and at her best is very funny." -- Anthony Thwaite Observer
Review
"Clever and dangerously beguiling." The Los Angeles Times
"As intoxicating as a shot of aged brandy . . . a true sensualist's feeling for Italy." The Washington Post
"The fullest and richest of her novels." Time Magazine
Synopsis
In
The Winter Vault, award-winning poet and novelist Anne Michaels crafts a love story of extraordinary depth and complexity, juxtaposing historic dislocations with the most intimate moments of individual lives.
In 1964, a newly married Canadian couple settles into a Nile River houseboat moored below the towering figures of Abu Simbel. Avery is one of the engineers responsible for moving the temple above the rapidly rising waters of the Aswan Dam. At the edge of a world about to be lost forever, Avery and and his new wife Jean begin to create their own world. But it will not be enough to bind them when tragedy strikes and they go back to separate lives in Toronto. There Jean meets Lucjan, a Polish artist whose haunting stories of his shattered childhood in occupied Warsaw draw her further away from Avery. But, in time, he will also show her the way back to consolation and forgiveness.
Synopsis
In eighteenth-century Germany, the impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the Romantic poet Novalis seeks his father's permission to wed his true philosophy -- a plain, simple child named Sophie. The attachment shocks his family and friends. This brilliant young man, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard! How can it be? A literary sensation and a bestseller in England and the United States, The Blue Flower was one of eleven books- and the only paperback- chosen as an Editor's Choice by the New York Times Book Review. The 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner in Fiction.
Synopsis
“An astonishing book . . . Fitzgerald’s greatest triumph.” —
New York Times Book Review The Blue Flower is set in the age of Goethe, in the small towns and great universities of late eighteenth-century Germany. It tells the true story of Friedrich von Hardenberg, a passionate, impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the Romantic poet Novalis. Fritz seeks his father’s permission to wed his “heart's heart,” his “spirit's guide”—a plain, simple child named Sophie von Kühn. It is an attachment that shocks his family and friends. Their brilliant young Fritz, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard? How can this be?
The irrationality of love, the transfiguration of the commonplace, the clarity of purpose that comes with knowing one’s own fate—these are the themes of this beguiling novel, themes treated with a mix of wit, grace, and mischievous humor unique to the art of Penelope Fitzgerald.
“An extraordinary imagining . . . an original masterpiece.” —Hermione Lee, Financial Times
Synopsis
"Freddie's" is the familiar name of the Temple Stage School, which supplies London's West End theaters with child actors for everything from Shakespeare to musicals to the Christmas pantomime. Its proprietress, Freddie Wentworth, is a formidable woman of unknown age and murky background who brings anyone she encounters under her spell -- so common an occurrence that it is known as "being Freddied." At her school, we meet dour Pierce, a teacher hopelessly smitten with enchanting Hannah; Jonathan, a child actor of great promise, and his slick rival Mattie; and Joey Blatt, who has wicked plans to rescue Freddie's from insolvency. Up to its surprising conclusion, At Freddie's is thoroughly beguiling.
Synopsis
“A jewel of a book.” —
Daily Mail It is the 1960s, in London’s West End, and Freddie is the formidable proprietress of the Temple Stage School, which supplies child actors for everything from Shakespeare to musicals to the Christmas pantomime. Of unknown age and provenance, Freddie is a skirt-swathed enigma—a woman who by sheer force of character and single-minded thrust has turned herself and her school into a national institution. Anyone who is anyone must know Freddie.
Filled with unique and hilarious insights into the theatrical world, At Freddie’s is a beguiling story for those of us who sometimes pretend to be something we are not.
“Love, fear, class, ambition, even death—it's all in here, but so elegantly presented that you've finished your plate before you even think to ask about the ingredients.” —National Public Radio
Synopsis
Beautiful Chiara is the last of the Ridolfi, a Florentine family of long lineage and eccentric habits. She is smitten with Salvatore, a brilliant but penniless doctor, a rational man who wants nothing to do with romance. This is the story of how these two--with the best intentions, the kindest of instincts, and the most meddlesome of friends--make each other wonderfully miserable inside.
Synopsis
“A delectable comedy of manners.” —
Boston Globe The Ridolfi are a Florentine family of long lineage and little money. It is 1955, Italy is still struggling back after the war, and the family, like its decrepit villa and farm, has seen better days. Among the Ridolfi, only eighteen-year-old Chiara shows anything like vitality. But it’s a vitality matched by innocence—a dangerous combination, to herself and to all who love her.
Chiara sets her heart on the bull-headed Salvatore, a brilliant young doctor from the south who resolved long ago to be emotionally dependent on no one. Stymied, she calls on her resourceful English girlfriend, Barney, to help her make the impossible match. And so ensues a comedy of errors, in which guileless lovers, with the best of intentions, considerable charm, and the kindest of instincts, succeed in making one another thoroughly and astonishingly miserable.
“An exquisite mosaic, where every tiny piece is part of a world.” —A. S. Byatt, Threepenny Review
Synopsis
On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag of eccentrics live in houseboats. Belonging to neither land nor sea, they belong to one another. There is Maurice, a homosexual prostitute; Richard, a buttoned-up ex-navy man; but most of all there's Nenna, the struggling mother of two wild little girls. How each of their lives complicates the others is the stuff of this perfect little novel.
Synopsis
Winner of the Booker Prize On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag of the slightly disreputable, the temporarily lost, and the patently eccentric live on houseboats, rising and falling with the great river’s tides. Belonging to neither land nor sea, they cling to one another in a motley yet kindly society. There is Maurice, by occupation a male prostitute, by happenstance a receiver of stolen goods. And Richard, a buttoned-up ex-navy man whose boat dominates the Reach. Then there is Nenna, a faithful but abandoned wife, the diffident mother of two young girls running wild on the waterfront streets.
It is Nenna’s domestic predicament that, as it deepens, draws the relations among this scrubby community together into ever more complex and comic patterns. The result is one of Fitzgerald’s greatest triumphs, a novel the Booker judges deemed “flawless.”
“A marvelous achievement: strong, supple, humane, ripe, generous, and graceful.” —Sunday Times
Synopsis
From National Book Award finalist Howard Norman, a novel of extraordinary emotional power--the story of a writer whose short and erotically charged marriage has ended in his wife's unsolved murder, and who, in the confusing aftermath, sells the story to an ambitious filmmaker
Synopsis
“An opening sentence worthy of the Noir Hall of Fame . . . provocative . . . haunting . . . deft.” — Janet Maslin, New York Times “Engrossing . . . Norman pulls off a fascinating balancing act here: the literary page-turner that, when it’s done, you want to retrace.” — Seattle Times Sam Lattimore meets Elizabeth Church in 1970s Halifax, in an art gallery. Their brief, erotically charged marriage is extinguished with Elizabeth’s murder. Sam’s life afterward is complicated. In a moment of desperate confusion, he sells his life story to a Norwegian filmmaker named Istvakson, known for the stylized violence of his films, whose artistic drive sets in motion an increasingly intense cat-and-mouse game between the two men. Furthermore, Sam has begun “seeing” Elizabeth—not only seeing but holding conversations with her, almost every evening, and what at first seems simply hallucination born of terrible grief reveals itself, evening by evening, as something else entirely.
About the Author
PENELOPE FITZGERALD wrote many books small in size but enormous in popular and critical acclaim over the past two decades. Over 300,000 copies of her novels are in print, and profiles of her life appeared in both The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. In 1979, her novel Offshore won Britain's Booker Prize, and in 1998 she won the National Book Critics Circle Prize for The Blue Flower. Though Fitzgerald embarked on her literary career when she was in her 60's, her career was praised as "the best argument.. for a publishing debut made late in life" (New York Times Book Review). She told the New York Times Magazine, "In all that time, I could have written books and I didn’t. I think you can write at any time of your life." Dinitia Smith, in her New York Times Obituary of May 3, 2000, quoted Penelope Fitzgerald from 1998 as saying, "I have remained true to my deepest convictions, I mean to the courage of those who are born to be defeated, the weaknesses of the strong, and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedy, for otherwise how can we manage to bear it?"
Reading Group Guide
1. Discuss the metaphor of the title,
The Winter Vault.
2. Have you read Michaels's first novel, Fugitive Pieces? What parallels do you see between that novel and her new novel?
3. Reread the two passages at the very beginning. Now that you've read the entire book, what do the phrases “No image forgets this origin” and “No word forgets this origin” mean to you?
4. The book opens with Avery painting Jean's back, and closes with her painting his. What is the significance of this act?
5. Throughout the novel, themes of human destruction and rebuilding play out. What do you think Michaels is trying to say? Can you think of any destruction in the novel that's not human in origin?
6. How does Jean's botany connect to Avery's work?
7. What is the purpose of the Belzoni flashback on pages 30-32?
8. Why does Georgina Foyle affect Avery so strongly?
9. Words carry a lot of weight with the characters, especially through their storytelling. How do Avery, Jean, and Lucjan use words to achieve-or avoid-intimacy?
10. On page 93, Marina says, “Love must wait for wounds to heal.” Whose wounds is she talking about? How does this notion resonate throughout the novel?
11. Avery longs to save something, rather than destroy things. How does he finally do this?
12. Discuss the idea of home. How does it differ for the Nubians, the Poles, Avery, Jean, Lucjan?
13. On page 140, Jean talks about virtually indestructible seeds, which can lay dormant for centuries before sprouting. What is she really talking about?
14. “I want to build the room where I wish I'd been born,” Avery says on page 158. What does he mean by that?
15. How does Jean's dream (pages 166-7) relate to her pregnancy? How does it change her?
16. What is the connection between Jean's after-hours gardening and Lucjan's “Caveman” paintings?
17. On pages 202-3, Jean realizes Lucjan's painting “was not about Lascaux but about exile and the seizing of joy that will not come of its own accord.” Who else tries to seize joy, and how do they do it?
18. Reread the paragraph on page 214 that begins, “Cities, like people, are born with a soul. . .” Could you say the same about the Nubian countryside and the small towns along the St. Lawrence?
19. Daub writes to Jean (page 249): “Perhaps there is a collective dead. But there is no such thing as a collective death. Each death, each birth, a single death, a single birth.” What does this mean for Jean, for Lucjan, for the post-Holocaust world?
20. How does the jazz group the Stray Dogs fit into the larger story?
21. Reread and discuss Ranger's rant on pages 266-7.
22. Several times in the novel, Lucjan tells Jean that we only get one chance to be happy in life, and if something goes wrong, that chance is lost forever. Where do you think that turning point is for him? For Jean? And Avery? Do you agree with this theory?
23. “Regret is not the end of the story; it is the middle of the story”(page 336). The novel closes with this thought. What does it mean?
(For a complete list of available reading group guides, and to sign up for the Reading Group Center enewsletter, visit www.readinggroupcenter.com)
The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group's discussion of The Winter Vault, Anne Michaels's much-anticipated follow-up to her award-winning debut novel, Fugitive Pieces.