The Paris Library, by Janet Skeslien Charles

 

Characters/People
Paris 1939 – 1944	Froid, Montana 1983 – 1988
Odile Souchet Remy – twin brother Papa Maman – Hortense   Eugenie – affair with Papa, nurse for Maman   Paul – policeman working with Papa   Aunt Cora – abandoned by Maman and sent home Uncle Lionel – divorced to marry mistress   American Library – staff: Miss Dorothy Reeder – Directress of Library, American Mrs. Turnbull – cataloger Boris Netchaeff – head librarian, Franco-Russian Mademoiselle Frikart – secretary, French-Swiss Miss Wedd – bookkeeper, British, arrested and sent to camp in France Peter Oustinoff – shelver, American Helen Fickweiler – reference librarian, American Muriel Joubert “Bitsi” – children’s librarian   Library Patrons: Mr. Pryce-Jones – retired English diplomat Countess Clara de Chambrun – trustee, author, Directress after Reeder Professor Cohen Geoffrey du Nerciat – journalist Margaret – English, daughter Christina   Felix – Nazi soldier dating Margaret   Dr. Hermann Fuchs – library director in charge of “intellectual activity”	Odile Gustafson Buck – husband, deceased Marc – son, killed in Vietnam   Lily Dad Mother -Brenda, died   Mary Louise – Lily’s friend Tiffany Ivers – mean girl in school   Robby   Eleanor Carlson – affair with father, second wife after Brenda died Sons with father – Joe and Benjy   Grandma Pearl – Eleanor’s mother

 

 

 

 

For Discussion

NOTES:               Underlined names are those of real people. 

Page numbers are from hardback edition.

 

1.       For most of the novel, there were two separate stories with the connection being Odile in both.  In the part set earlier in Paris, many of the characters were real people.  Was it important to you to know who was real and who was not?

a.       What did you think of Odile’s family, particularly the way her father treated Remy and the way her mother abandoned her sister, Aunt Cora, and sent her away after her husband divorced her?

b.       One of Odile’s jobs at the library was to write the newsletter and one of her most popular columns was to interview people and ask them what type of reader they are.    What do the books you love say about you?

c.       When she was asked why the library was sending books to the troops, she replied, “Because no other thing possesses that mystical faculty to make people see with other people’s eyes.  The Library is a bridge of books between cultures” (page 118).    Did this book, or any other, help you understand people better?  How?

d.       When Odile sent books to Remy, he told her he liked that she had written her thoughts in the margins, “How clever to write your impressions in the margins!” (page 123).  What are your thoughts about writing in the books you own?

e.       Discuss Margaret and the way her story unfolded.  Her romance with Felix started around a book.   Was she at fault for befriending him?  Was what happened to her Odile’s fault?

f.        Did Paul and Odile’s father have a choice about arresting Jewish people such as Professor Cohen?  Could you understand their reasons, especially Odile’s father who was trying to take care of his family?

g.       Was it human nature for some of the liberated Parisians to attack the women who had consorted with the Nazis?   Were they any better than the Nazis?

2.       Regarding the more current sections of the book set in Montana from 1983 -1988, what were your thoughts about those characters?  As you were reading, why did you think these sections were included in the book?  Were they necessary?

a.       After she came home from the hospital in 1984 and they were talking about her father, her mother, Brenda, told Lily, “People are awkward, they don’t always know what to do or say.  Don’t hold it against them.  You never know what’s in their hearts.”  How does this statement apply to the characters in the story?

b.       Were you surprised Lily and Mary Louise went into Odile’s house and snooped around after they got in trouble for snooping in Angel’s room? 

c.       When Lily found the letters Odile had taken from her father’s office during the war, she asked Odile if she had written them.  Odile was so hurt by this that she did not see Lily or her family for months.   Could you understand her strong reaction?

3.       One parallel in the novel was the two mistresses, both who were involved in the lives of the families.  In Paris in 1940, Eugenie nursed Hortense back to health. How was she able to show such tenderness toward her at the same time she was having an affair with her husband?

4.       In the same vein, in 1986, Eleanor married Lily’s father and constantly compared herself negatively to Brenda.  Why did the father see what was happening and intervene?  Why do you think she was so obsessed with Brenda?

5.       When you read chapter 44 about how Eleanor had nothing of her own in the house, did you think differently about her behavior?

6.       Why was everyone slipping their foot over someone else’s as a sign of affection.   For example, in Montana when Odile was going to visit her friend in Chicago and was saying goodbye, Lily slid her foot over hers (top of page 260).  Have you ever heard of this before?

7.       Discuss your reading experience.   Did you like the way the story went back and forth in time?  When you finished the book, what did you think about the most? 

The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett

 

Characters
Mallard	Desiree		Stella
Decuir – founding family, 1848   Adele Decuir Vignes -mother Leon - father, killed by white men	Sam Winston – husband, abusive Jude – daughter (see below)   Early Jones – hunted missing people   Lou’s Egg House		Blake Sanders – husband Kennedy – daughter (see below)   Reginald and Loretta Walker – black family moved into Palace Estates Cindy - daughter
Jude Winston		Kennedy Sanders
Reese Carter - boyfriend   Barry – Reese’s friend, high school teacher and drag queen		Franz – boyfriend   Played Charity Harris in soap opera, Pacific Cove   Became successful real estate agent

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the hardback edition.

1.       The twins witnessed their father being killed and then were forced to leave school to work after 10^th grade?  How did these two events change their lives?  Was it fair of their mother to insist they leave school?  Did she have a choice?   Would Stella have changed her race if she had been able to finish school and go to college?

2.       Were you surprised that Stella spoke up at the Home Owner’s Association meeting against the Walkers moving in?  Why then did she almost become friends with Loretta?

3.       What motivated Stella to get her GED and then go on to college and eventually teach?   How hard do you think it was for Blake to suddenly have a wife different than from what he expected?

4.       How do you think he would have reacted if he had found out Stella was technically considered to be an African American?

5.       Do you think the fact that Blake had a black doll, Jimbo, when he was young that his dad destroyed one day would have made a difference in how he would react to the news?

6.       Why do you think Jude felt compelled to tell Kennedy about her heritage?  Why couldn’t she just leave it alone?

7.       In her thirties, Kennedy began to feel that “Her whole life, in fact, had been a gift of good fortune – she had been given whiteness” and “a bounty of gifts she hadn’t deserved” (page 299).   Could you understand why she felt this way?

8.       Did you gain any insight into acting?  Kennedy realized that “she became new each time she stepped under the lights” (page 246).   Her drama teacher told her, “True acting meant becoming invisible so that only the character shone through” (page 267).  Have you seen any movies or plays where you felt the actors ceased to exist as their own self?

9.       Leaving seems to be one of the themes in the book.  For example, both girls left Mallard, Stella permanently; Kennedy left for a year and traveled; Early’s parents left him when he was young.  How did leaving, returning or staying affect the characters’ lives?

10.   In an interview, Brit Bennett said that one of the questions in the novel is what makes us who we are?  Do we define ourselves or do others define us?

11.   In the interview she asked what race really is.   Does it require participation of others to confirm what we think or how we identify ourselves?

12.   How hard is it to redefine yourself, for example to start to think about yourself as someone who exercises as opposed to a couch potato?   How hard do you think it was for Stella to redefine herself?

13.   Did you like the organization of the book, bouncing back and forth between 1968 and 1978 and then beyond?