Synopses & Reviews
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the YearPart fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.
Kate Atkinson's first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was named England's Whitbread Book of the Year in 1995. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.
Review
"A literary tour de force of emotional and linguistic complexity...Atkinson specializes in audacity, which she offers up with irresistible humor and grace." The San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
Review
"By the time you reach the end, you'll want to read this modern mystery/fairy tale again." Seventeen
Review
"Atkinson's language sometimes giddy, sometimes understated to accomodate the black comedy, occasionally frankly emotional is a joy." Valerie Sayers, Commonweal
Review
"Human Croquet must be one of the first modern day fairy tales/dysfuntional family dramas to borrow from both Shakespeare and 'The Twilight Zone'...Idiosyncratic, eccentric, and blackly funny...A quizzically inventive novel." Liesel Litzenburger, The Detroit Free Press
Synopsis
From the award-winning author of Life After Life comes Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet, part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel
New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
Human Croquet tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates.
A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.
Synopsis
New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the YearPart fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.
About the Author
Kate Atkinson was born in York, and earned her master's degree in English at Dundee University. While raising her two daughters, she held a variety of jobs, from university tutor to welfare benefits administrator, and always wrote, publishing short stories in British magazines. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won England's prestigious Whitbread Book of the Year award in 1995, and became an international bestseller. Her second novel, Human Croquet, was also an acclaimed bestseller. Her most recent novel is Emotionally Weird. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Reading Group Guide
From the bestselling author of
Behind the Scenes at the Museum comes a wildly inventive, deeply moving, darkly comic tale of a young girl's exploration of her past.
As her sixteenth birthday unfolds, Isobel Fairfax is pulled into brief time warps and extended periods of omniscience, hurtled into the distant past where she meets the first Fairfax, to the roaring '20's, to World War II. Along the way she gradually learns the truth about her strange family, and about her mother, whose disappearance is part of the secret at the heart of the nearby forest.
At once a fairy tale, a mystery, and a family saga, Human Croquet is a stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, a novel rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.
Discussion
Questions:
What is the significance of the title? Human croquet is a game in which a blindfolded player is directed through human hoops. Who or what is directing Isabel, and what are the hoops she must navigate?
Objects and people are frequently lost or misplaced throughout the novel, sometimes for good, sometimes just temporarily. What are some examples of this, and what do you think is the point of these goings and comings?
Many fairy tales share common character types, settings, and situations. What are some of the classic fairy tale motifs that appear in Human Croquet?
Isobel observes on page 27 that "absence of Eliza has shaped our lives," and later states that "we are all mis-shapen in some way, inside or out" (p. 41). What is the significance of shape and physicality to the story?
On their way to a fateful picnic, the family "sat on the deck of the bus, on the front seats, and watched the streets of trees go sailing by below. The big branch of a sycamore snapped unexpectedly against the window in front of them, rattling its dead leaves that were like hands, and Eliza said, It's alright, it's just a tree, and lit a cigarette" (p. 107). What does this foreshadow? What is the significance and role of trees throughout the novel?
Consider the various kinds of mothers in the book: Eliza, Debbie, Mrs. Potter, Mrs. Baxter, and the Widow. What, if anything, do they have in common? While none of them is perfect, what does Human Croquet seem to say about motherhood and the role of mothers in children's lives?
While its opening line ("Call me Isobel.") is a play on Moby Dick, that novel's influence is less evident throughout Human Croquet than other books, plays, and movies (Kate Atkinson said in an interview that one of her two favorite films is "'Groundhog Day,' which you can probably tell if you've read Human Croquet"). What other references and allusions do you find in the novel?
Kate Atkinson,
in her own words:
How much of your fiction is autobiographical?
"With Behind the Scenes at the Museum, people were always saying, 'Is it autobiographical?' It is in some of the details the toys and games are my toys and games; when Ruby learns to read, that's me learning to read but not in the plot. The relentless 'it has to be autobiographical' always seems like an insult to me, as if you can't actually write fiction. So for Human Croquet I wanted to write something that was purely a product oif the imagination. To me, the imagination is crucial. Perhaps because I was an only child and an avid reader, I had a very active imagination. I don't know what sort other people have, because we never talk about our imaginative lives, but I always presumed that mine was psychopathically active."
How do you set out to begin a new novel?
"I love structure; I'm the kind of sad person that likes lit crit. The thing that makes it very difficult for meto write is that I can't plan at all; the book has to grow out of each sentence, and I'm always on this rolling edge where I never really know what will happen next. At the same time, I generally start off with structure: I know how I want a book to feel; I know how I want it to be; I don't know how to get there. So I'm constantly structuring and restructuring as I go along, trying to get it to that place."
Who are some of your favorite writers?
"I'm a big Kurt Vonnegut fan; I think Slaughterhouse-Five is just the best book, because he does what I most admire in 60's writers like Donald Barthelme and Robert Coover: he4 invests structure with emotion, he gets the balance which is something I think Jane Austen does, too; I think she's a more structured writer that we give her credit for, because we end up reading her on TV...I think possible Joseph Heller does it in Catch-22 as well...And I think The Great Gatsby is just a transcendent sort of book."
Discussion Questions
1. What is the significance of the title? Human Croquet is a game in which a blindfolded player is directed through human hoops. Who or what is directing Isobel, and what hoops must she navigate?
2. Objects and people are frequently lost or misplaced throughout the novel, sometimes for good, sometimes just temporarily. What are some examples of this, and what do you think is the point of these goings and comings?
3. Many fairy tales share common character types, settings and situations. What are some of the classic fairy tale motifs that appear in Human Croquet?
4. Isobel observes on page 27 that "absence of Eliza has shaped our lives," and later states that "we are all misshapen in some way, inside or out" (p. 41). What is the significance of shape and physicality to the story?
5. On their way to a fateful picnic, the family "sat on the deck of the bus, on the front seats, and watched the streets of trees go sailing by below. The big branch of a sycamore snapped unexpectedly against the window in front of them, rattling its dead leaves that were like hands, and Eliza said, Its alright, its just a tree and lit a cigarette" (p.107). What does this foreshadow? What is the significance and role of trees throughout the novel?
6. Consider the various kinds of mothers in the book: Eliza, Debbie, Mrs. Potter, Mrs. Baxter, and the Widow. What, if anything, do they have in common? While none of them is perfect, what does Human Croquet seems to say about motherhood and the role of mothers in childrens lives?
7. While its opening line ("Call me Isobel.") is a play on Moby Dick, that novels influence is less evident throughout Human Croquet than other books, plays, and movies (Kate Atkinson said in an interview that one of her two favorite films is "‘Groundhog Day, which you can probably tell if youve read Human Croquet"). What other references and allusions do you find in the novel?