The Antiques
Page 27
Nobody ever said, “Here’s your family. What do you think?” You just got them. Or you didn’t get them.
Josef ran out the cord as far as it would go. Abbott jumped up and down and Charlie held him in place. Ana unnecessarily plugged her fingers to her ears. Josef handed Charlie the launch controls and she let go of Abbott and he did not run off, just bopped in place. She inserted the plastic key-pin to activate the unit and pressed the button. Nothing happened. Abbott stopped jumping and cocked his head to one side, unsure whether to celebrate or scream, Ernest poised above his head in uncertainty.
“I don’t think it’s working,” Charlie said.
“What the fuck?” Josef said. “Sorry, Abbott, bad word. What the F? I don’t understand.”
He walked toward the rocket, and just as he hit the edge of the grass, the Loadstar II shot into the air, leaving a wonderful plume of white smoke. Abbott cheered and jumped. They craned their necks to track the rocket’s curved ascent. Josef hooted. Armie clapped.
Behind them the city of Hudson came out of its storm slumber—its wind-tunnel fever dream, its roaring rainy pause. Shops were back in business. Unique Gourmet Pet Accoutrements were being sold. Eddie the UPS man was at home watching football. He’d been right about getting a few days off. The Rustic Grape Wine Bar had power and was indeed open. The artisanal butcher wrapped some choice cuts of sirloin in wax paper and passed the package over the counter. The last rainwater dripped from the high-arched windows of St. Mary’s Church. Russell Garrett came down the steps of the precinct house and paused, thinking he heard something like the whistle of fireworks not far away. In the Warren Street house, Conversation in the Sky looked down over an empty living room. A living room George Westfall had always considered quite well decorated. A very nice room, he’d remarked. A good place to sit and be at ease and have a drink out of the well-stocked liquor cabinet, even if he’d never actually sat and been at ease in that room.
The Loadstar II crested out over the edge of the sloping riverbank, where way down below the cold dark river carried on. Josef estimated its apex at 1,000+ feet and there, just as the rocket slowed and turned, the nose cone detached and the plastic parachute deployed and the payload compartment dispersed its contents in a faint but visible twinkling cloud.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m eternally indebted to my brothers—Chase and Tom—for too many things to get into here.
Thank you to my mother and father, for everything. Thank you, Kristen, for putting up with me; I know it isn’t always easy. A big thanks to my agent, Ethan Bassoff, for your unwavering support all these years and your friendship. Thanks to my editor, John Glynn, for taking this novel under your wing and for your genuine enthusiasm from the get-go. Thanks to all the awesome, talented people at Scribner. Thank you to everyone who ever said a kind word about my writing and encouraged me to keep doing it, especially: Evelyn Jenkins Gunn, David Gates, Jonathan Dee, Michael C. White, Kim Bridgford, and Jim Mayzik. Tim O’Connell and I sat on a bench in the West Village, in 2005, and talked about our respective futures and the things we dreamed of doing, and then we pushed each other to do them. Thank you, Tim, for always lending your ear to listen to me rant about things.
Thank you Jane Racoosin for giving me my second home, which is really the foundation all of this is built upon—I haven’t thanked you enough since 2005.
Peace.
-A SCRIBNER READING GROUP GUIDE-
THE ANTIQUES
KRIS D’AGOSTINO
This reading group guide for The Antiques includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. We hope that these questions will enrich your reading group’s conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
Kris D’Agostino’s The Antiques is an emotionally reverberant portrait of an American family in chaos. On the eve of a massive super storm, George Westfall lays dying. His three adult children have drifted apart, and his wife is fighting to protect the family’s struggling antiques business. The novel tracks a week in the lives of the Westfall children as they return to the family home after their father’s death. Josef, a sex-addicted tech executive is struggling to make amends with his ex-wife. Charlie, his sister, is living in LA and working for a conceited Hollywood starlet. Their youngest brother, Armie, is living in the family’s basement, haunted by the ghosts of his past. As the family comes together to mourn the loss of their father and sell off his heirloom Magritte painting, they experience the unexpected epiphanies that can emerge in grief and reconnect with the core values that shaped them.
Topics and Questions for Discussion
1. What is the significance of setting the story on the eve of a hurricane? How does D’Agostino use nature to reflect the Westfalls’ emotional topography?
2. What do you make of the novel’s title? How are the Westfalls attempting to enact an outmoded, antique ideal of family?
3. Though The Antiques is a story about loss and grief, D’Agostino constantly leavens the narrative with sharp humor. How does this emotional interplay mirror the process of mourning? Were there any moments in the book where you laughed out loud?
4. Why do you think D’Agostino chose to structure the timeline of the book over the span of a few days? Does this condensed scope add a layer of immediacy to the narrative?
5. Does Josef embody the stereotype of the oldest child? Did his behavior strike you as striving or immature?
6. How does Charlie serve as a foil to Josef? How does Armie?
7. What role does faith play in the novel? Is Ana’s Catholicism more about ideology or the comfort of ritual?
8. How is D’Agostino’s depiction of Melody Montrose a commentary on the nature of Hollywood celebrity? Why do you think Melody undergoes such a dramatic transformation when she arrives in Hudson?
9. What did you think of Charlie as a mother and the way she handles Abbott’s behavioral issues? How is Charlie seen as the novel’s central caregiver?
10. What is the true value of the Westfalls’ Magritte painting? In what way does the painting, despite the final appraisal, actually prove priceless?
11. The Westfalls are a flawed, complex yet ultimately likeable family. Which character did you find the most sympathetic?
12. Why do you think D’Agostino chose to end the novel with the launch of the rocket? Did you find the end satisfying?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. The Antiques is part of a vibrant tradition of dysfunctional family novels. Consider the book alongside works by Jonathan Franzen, Meg Wolitzer, Emma Straub, and Jonathan Tropper. What, collectively, do these books have to say about the American family?
2. Pair The Antiques with movies like The Family Stone or The Royal Tennenbaums. How is the novel borrowing the tropes of the classic films of family dysfunction? Does D’Agostino’s writing feel cinematic to you?
3. René Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist known for depicting ordinary objects in novel, amusing, and unexpected ways. Explore Magritte’s oeuvre. How are his artistic gestures in keeping with D’Agostino’s portrait of the Westfalls? Does Magritte’s vision open up new ways of contextualizing The Antiques?
© SHAWN BRACKBILL
KRIS D’AGOSTINO holds an MFA in creative writing from the New School. His first novel is The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac. He lives in Brooklyn.
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ALSO BY KRIS D’AGOSTINO
The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Scribner hardcover edition January 2017
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