A Rather Lovely Inheritance
Page 30
2. The heroine is seemingly full of contradictions; Penny loves her work, but doesn’t care for office politics. She appreciates beautiful clothes and fine things, but doesn’t particularly like shopping. She’s slightly world-weary, yet she deliberately refuses to become jaded and cynical. Penny herself says that she’s “incurably” hopeful, a not-quite-thwarted idealist. She persists in believing that she might find a soul mate in life. In short, she’s gambling that she can succeed on her own terms. Does the path she’s chosen in life make her journey simpler? More difficult? What will it require of her? Is there a point of no return, where she has no choice but to go full-speed ahead?
3. The hero is also a man of complexity. Jeremy is self-assured, worldly-wise, yet as Penny noted, there has always been an undercurrent of rebellion in his nature. Then he is thrown into an unexpected crisis that leads him to question not only his comfortable assumptions about life, but his actual identity. How does he handle it initially? Does he change tactics at any point? How do the other characters influence his responses?
4. It’s Penny’s job to be able to tell what’s authentic and what’s fake, as well as to find out how time and history influence people. Is she able to do this in her daily life? What are the turning points in the story that shed light on the circumstances, and what leads her to these moments? Are they random, or do they occur as a result of her own endeavors? She also believes that history can serve as a “map” or guide to finding out what’s important in life. What do you think of that? The heroine also concludes that, historically speaking, “life is awfully short.” How would such a revelation alter the way a person conducts her life? Does it influence the choices that Penny makes?
5. Both Penny’s and Jeremy’s parents keep secrets from them. How do these secrets emerge? Why were they kept quiet in the first place? Why are so many family histories so fragmented? What was Great-Aunt Penelope’s real legacy to them all?
About the Author
C.A. Belmond has published short fiction, poetry and humorous essays. She was awarded the Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship and was twice a Pushcart Press Editors’ Book Award finalist. She has written, directed and produced television drama and documentary, and her screenplays were shortlisted at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference. She has taught writing at New York University, and was a writer-in-residence at the Karolyi Foundation in the South of France.
Visit her Web site at www.aratherlovelyinheritance.com.