Family Secrets
Page 26
“And that leaves my firstborn child.” She held up her thumb. “What’s next for my darling Vanessa? What do we do about her melancholy, which began long before Scott left and the Hattie trip came along?”
“Melancholy? That’s a word one doesn’t hear very often. A literary-sounding word for ‘sad.’ But I’m not sad. Really I’m not.”
“What are you then?”
“In a holding pattern, I guess,” Vanessa said, making sure she didn’t sigh, “and waiting for something or someone to come along to break me free. Sometimes I think I should be out there looking for a man, but I’ve learned to get along with myself on the weekends the girls are gone, and at this point in my life I just don’t have the energy or the confidence or the desire to change my ways in order to accommodate a male presence in my life. Right now, I want to focus on my daughters.”
“What about finding a new job? You’ve never really liked the one you have.”
“Actually, I hate my job,” Vanessa said with an emphatic nod, “but I have to think about benefits and retirement. I can’t tell you how hard it was going back to work after that trip. Of course, no one knew that I’d been to hell and back, and I didn’t enlighten them. But everything about my job seems inconsequential, and the years are flying by. All too soon my daughters will leave the nest. But what can I do except put one foot in front of the other and keep on trudging?”
“Why don’t you write a book?”
“Me?”
“You have a degree in journalism. You write very well. You could write about what happened to you and your sisters on your trip—either a fictionalized version or true-to-life. You’ve got to admit it’s quite a story.”
“Yes, it’s quite a story,” Vanessa agreed. “Ellie had thought about writing a magazine piece about three New York sisters searching for their long-lost grandmother. But it was going to be heartwarming. Now that would have to be a work of fiction.”
“I suspect Ellie’s going to be much too busy for free-lance writing,” Penelope said with a pleased smile. “I want you to think about creating something good out of a nightmare.”
“I don’t have the time,” Vanessa protested.
“With my own writing,” Penelope said, holding her fingers as though they were on a computer keyboard, “I find it very satisfying when I go to bed at night knowing that the lines I wrote that day, whether few or many, are not going away. So much of what we women do never stays done. The dishes and laundry we wash and the floors we mop just get dirty again, but in the morning the words I wrote the day before are waiting for me to add to and improve upon. They are my gift to myself. Think about it, dear.”
“I will. Maybe I’ll write a best seller and buy a second home in the south of France.”
“Does that mean you forgive me for moving here?”
Vanessa put her head on her mother’s shoulder. “I still wish that you lived in New York. And I wish that Daddy were still alive. And that Lily and Beth weren’t growing up so fast. And that Scott and I had done a better job with our marriage. But those are things I can’t change.”
“Yes, my wise girl.” Penelope planted a soft kiss on Vanessa’s forehead. “So what can you change?”
“I want to enjoy life more. I want to be more like my mother, who chooses happiness over unhappiness.” As Vanessa spoke the words, she realized how true they were.
And as she pondered that realization, she noticed three climbers on the path below. Georgiana, Lily, and Beth were climbing up the hill.
Vanessa jumped up and called to them and waved.
They waved back. Her daughters and her baby sister.
Vanessa wished Ellie were with them. But next summer they would all be here together. By then Ellie and her doctor would be married and maybe even have a baby or one on the way. This lovely, peaceful corner of the world would become the center of their family because this was where their mother was. They would come here each summer to renew their spirits and their family ties.
Vanessa turned and wrapped her arms around her mother and buried her face against her shoulder. She needed to cry a bit before her sister and daughters reached the top. Good tears, she realized. Tears because she was loved and loved in return, which is the greatest gift that life has to offer.
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Reading Group Guide
Family Secrets
THE suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for discussion of Family Secrets. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
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Discussion Points
At the opening of the novel, Matthew Wentworth, father of the Wentworth sisters, has been dead almost a year. Which sister is struggling the most with his death? Do you think this affects their relationships with the men in their lives? If so, how?
Myrna reflects on her days as Hattie, and remembers her father after the mine accident, dying a slow death, with the scars on his back from the beatings he received at the hands of his father, and not a nickel to his name. She recalls the time her father sang the Christmas carol as a “moment of pure love, the sort of which does not come often in a lifetime, the sort of which one buries away because remembering is too painful.” (p. 65) How did the death of Hattie’s father impact her? How did her difficult childhood mold the adult she became?
Why do you think the girls, Vanessa in particular, had such a difficult time adjusting to their mother’s news about renting the family apartment and moving to the south of France with her new boyfriend? Do you think that Penelope could have done a better job of informing her daughters about her decision?
From the very first sentence, we get a glimpse into Myrna’s mercurial character: “As was her custom, Myrna had deliberately kept her visitor waiting for half an hour—a practice that established hierarchy.” (p. 1) Why do you think Myrna chose to handle the arrival of her long-lost granddaughters in the manner that she did? What does this say about her character? What were her other options for dealing with her new-found family?
After Vanessa meets Randall Cunningham, Myrna’s congressman son, he confides in her: “Mother never talked about her early life, and she had no photographs or keepsakes or mementos from her childhood. Not a one. We never made a trip back to her home town, never visited her family’s graves. My mother was the most private person I have ever known, and I find it extremely difficult to believe that she would tell total strangers things that she never told her own children.” (p. 284) Were you surprised by Randall’s reaction when he learns the truth about his mother from Vanessa? Do you get the sense that Randall was completely oblivious to his driven mother’s ways? He then tells Vanessa that the door to the mine was open. Do you think Myrna came back to free them or did Willy escape to exact revenge on her employer?
Myrna reflects on her relationship with Willy: “Willy’s entire life revolved around pleasing Myrna and her devotion to Myrna was absolute…. Already loneliness was seeping into Myrna’s bones as she realized how adrift she was going to be without her Willy. Willy had cared more about her than anyone else in the entire world. More than her own children.” (p. 240) Discuss Willy and Myrna’s relationship. Do you think it ran deeper than just employer and friend? Was it reciprocal?
At the end, how has each of the sisters changed? How do you think they will approach relationships in the future? How will each sister take this incredible ordeal and relate it to their lives?
Family Secrets combines a touching family saga with thrilling action and intrigue. Were you surprised when the story took such a dangerous turn?
At the end, Vanessa has an emotional visit with her mother in France, where she breaks down in tears and realizes, “She needed to cry a bit before her sister and daughter reached the top. Good tears…. Tears because she wa
s loved and loved in return, which is the greatest gift that life has to offer.” (p. 297) Love is a major theme in the novel. Discuss the different ways it is carried throughout. What are some of the other themes?
Q & A with Judith Henry Wall
You had written eleven genre romances under the name “Anne Henry.” What made you make the switch to mainstream fiction? Is your writing process any different? It was easier to get a genre romance published than a mainstream novel, and romances provided a wonderful training ground for me. I learned about plotting and developing characters and about discipline and deadlines.
The writing is different in that genre romances have certain limitations. These books are about the obstacles that stand in the way of true love and how a man and woman overcome these obstacles. The story generally ends with the moment of commitment. With a mainstream novel, the author has a wide-open field.
InA Good Man,you write about three old friends over the course of twenty-five years.The Girlfriends Clubfollows a year in the lives of four women who have been friends since childhood. You frequently write about relationships between women. What interests you about these kinds of relationships?
Women befriending and sustaining other women is a staple in both fiction and real life. I suppose I write and read such books because it reflects the importance of women friends in my own life.
When working on a novel, what’s your regime? Do you put any part of yourself into your characters?
Novels are about obstacles. If characters had clear sailing there wouldn’t be a story. After I decide on the obstacles, I create a cast of characters and let them act out the story for me. Writing novels is like method acting. The writer has to crawl inside the skin of the characters and think their thoughts, feel what they feel, and react as they would.
Who are some authors that have influenced you?
The books that I remember most fondly are the ones I read when I was young—the Bronte Sisters, Daphne Du Maurier, Leon Uris, Taylor Caldwell, Pearl Buck, and Leo Tolstoy. Other favorites include Herman Wouk, Jane Smiley, Gail Godwin, and so many more.
Your novel,Mother Love, was adapted into the 1995 television movie,A Family Divided, starring Faye Dunaway and Stephen Collins. IfFamily Secretswere to be adapted, who would you like to see star in it?
I can see Brooke Shields as Vanessa, Cate Blanchett as Ellie, and Hilary Duff as Georgiana. As for Myrna/Hattie, Cloris Leechman would do a great job.
Have you ever addressed a book club that was reading one of your books? Is it helpful in your work as an author to hear feedback from your readers?
I’ve talked to many book clubs via chat rooms, through speaker phones, and in person and find it most gratifying after all those many months alone with my characters and their story to hear what readers think of them.
You once said that you wroteA Good Manbecause your nephew once commented that “there were more jerks in (your) books than good guys.” How much do friends and family influence your work?
I used to write with a little censor bird sitting on my shoulder telling me what I could or could not write and asking me what my family and friends would think. I banished the censor bird years ago. Now I just write. A book takes on its own life.
What’s the most gratifying part of writing a novel? The most grueling?
The most gratifying part is when an epiphany presents itself and the writing starts flowing like a fountain. The most grueling part is getting started in the morning. It’s been said that the art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one’s pants to the chair. I agree.
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
I always liked to make up stories. Whenever my first-grade teacher needed to leave the room, she would ask me to tell my classmates a story. And I used to tell my children stories on long road trips and thought I might write children’s books someday. But when I began writing fiction, I realized children weren’t the audience I wanted to reach. I enrolled in writing classes, went to writers’ conferences, made friends with other would-be writers, and finally sold my fourth attempt.
Enhance Your Book Club
Deer Lodge is an actual town in Montana known for its two largest contributions—mining and prisons. Deer Lodge was home to the Old Montana Prison, which is now a museum, and currently houses the main corrections facility in the state. You can learn more about the town here: http://www.bigskyfishing.com/Montana-Info/city-galleries/deer-lodge-mt.shtm
If your book club meets for dinner, why not assign a character to each member and have them bring a dish that their character would make or enjoy? For example, Ellie is sure to bring something elegant, sparse and chic, whereas Vanessa might opt for comfort food.
Learn more about the author Judith Henry Wall by visiting her official site: http://www.judithhenrywall.com