Synopses & Reviews
This spellbinding collection of eleven stories chronicles the remarkable journey of one womans life from childhood to adulthood, through exotic landscapes, and through the darker, more mysterious terrain of the human heart. The title story inhabits a childs private realm within the maze of corridors in a Brazilian hotel. Later, a toy gun from a cowgirl costume becomes the symbol of something all too real. In a cramped apartment in Sweden, a young wife finds herself caught in the tensions between her husband and his father. A wife slips the bonds of marriage on a beach in Mexico. In a desert canyon on the island of Kauai, a woman at middle age discovers just how much she is willing to risk. And, in the haunting final story, the death of a parent unlocks the grief of a childs tragic death years before. Dazzling, evocative, daring, The Lion in the Room Next Door is an exquisitely crafted work of the imagination.
About the Author
Merilyn Simonds was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and spent her childhood in Brazil. Her books include
The Holding (2004), the internationally acclaimed short story collection
The Lion in the Room Next Door (1999), and
The Convict Lover (non-fiction, 1996), which was a finalist for the Governor Generals Award and the Arthur Ellis Award, and won the TORGI Award.
The Convict Lover premiered as a stage play at Torontos Theatre Passe Muraille in 1998.
Simonds has worked as a freelance writer and a magazine editor, has taught courses in literary non-fiction, and has been a guest lecturer at colleges and universities in the U. S. and Canada. She has won several national awards for her magazine writing.
She lives outside Kingston, Ontario, with her husband, writer and translator Wayne Grady.
Reading Group Guide
1. Landscape plays an important role in each story, as a mnemonic device, as a reflection of the narrator's state of mind, as a catalyst for insight and change. Discuss how landscape is used a s a literary device, particularly in "Taken for Delirium" and "The Distance to Delphi."
2. The evolving relationship of the narrator with her father, her sons, and her husbands provides a link between the stories in this collection. Discuss the parallels in these male familial relationships and compare them with the role that women - mothers, sisters, and friends - play in the narrative.
3. Although this is the story of one woman's life, it is rich in universals. How does the author accomplish this? To what extent is this a book about times and places as much as the author's particular experience?
4. Dreams and visions figure prominently in several stories, especially "King of the Cowboys, Queen of the West" and " Song of the Japanese White-eye." What purpose do they serve?
5. The collection takes its title from the first story, but the lion also appears in later stories. What is the significance of the lion in each story? In the collection?
6. The structure of the book is episodic: this is not the full story of a woman's life from age 7 to 47, but rather, it sets in high relief distinct moments in a life. How does this structure mirror the themes of the book? How does the author help the reader make the leap from story to story without filling in all the gaps?
7. The collection contains elements of magic realism, a style associated largely with Latin American writers. Discuss this, taking into consideration the lush writing style, the prevalence of myth and symbol, and the surreal interplay of real and dream worlds, especially in the final story, "The Day of the Dead."
CA