Discussion Summaries
Sugar
Some of us had trouble logging-in to chat. Nevertheless, the discussion was great.
We started out discussing what we thought of the book, especially as a first novel. We agreed that the story was a good one and that we were pleasantly surprised by the strong characters and their development.
We also agreed that although the story was set in a southern town in the U.S., its characters' traits were universal...they were just people.
We then discussed the story's opening. Could the author have written a different opening and achieved the same result? Was Jude a central character in the book? Could she have been introduced later? We decided that Jude was a central character...as much of a character as Pearl, Sugar, or Joe. Her voice was essential to the story, because her voice drove the story. Therefore, it was important that her voice was introduced at the beginning of the story.
We also discussed the strong relationship between Pearl and Sugar; the way Sugar softened and Pearl discovered she was strong, their names suggestive of their characters' traits...Sugar's sharp crystalline personality with the ability to melt and Pearl's deceptive softness which hid her many-layered toughness and inner strength.
We then turned to some of the themes...redemption being one and things not always being what they seem as another. We discussed Sugar's redemption, and also Pearl's, as the result of trust and faith in each other (and themselves to some extent); of the way people are not always what they seem on the surface...we all wear different clothes and faces as the occasion presents itself; that we have the choice of either trusting and having faith in our relationships or becoming cynical.
We closed on the somewhat serious note of sometimes being so caught up in our lives and ourselves, like the women of the town, that not only do we not take the time to get to know the "real" Sugars in our world, but, in many cases, ignore their existence.
The discussion concluded with all agreeing to meet on May 14, 2000, from 7 P.M. to 9 P.M. EST to discuss The Giant's House.
Evening News
Who was to blame for Trina's death? Should blame be assigned to anyone? Those questions started our discussion of Evening News by Marly Swick. We agreed that Teddy was definitely not to blame. But what about Eric's parents?
One member told of an incident that happened when she was a child. Her father had a gun. He used to sleep with it under his pillow and then lock it away upon awakening. One morning, he forgot it under his pillow. Someone found it, thought it was a toy, pointed it out the window and squeezed the trigger. Luckily, no one was hurt. She said that as kids, she and her brother knew about their father's gun and where it was kept. They knew where he kept the key to the box that held the gun. She remembers handling the gun, seeing it as being dirty—as having an oily feel—and wanting to lock it away as quickly as possible. She remembers it as a natural aversion.
The discussion then turned to Dan. Even though Dan had had reservations about dating Giselle when they first met, we thought his character was very cleverly written as the perfect foil for Ed. It seemed as if Dan was the perfect husband and father until his little girl was killed by his stepson and then his perfectly constructed persona and his carefully built world fell apart. We expected him to be more caring to both Giselle and Teddy, but although Giselle thought him to be the perfect husband the tragedy overwhelmed him and instead revealed all his flaws.
We rooted for the underdog, Ed...the blue collar guy, the guy that Giselle thought she had outgrown, the guy she had left because he was content to live a blue collar life. As we got deeper into the book Swick revealed that Ed, although not a college grad, was self-taught, intelligent, caring, and introspective—the same qualities that had drawn Giselle to Dan, the same qualities that she had found lacking in Ed while they were married. Whereas Dan was all show by writing Giselle poetry and reading to her, etc., Ed showed his love and caring in smaller concrete ways.
We also asked what if Teddy had been killed by Dan's daughter. What if the story were flipped upside-down? We decided that Ed's character would be more understanding and sympathetic. Of course, then tension that drives the story would be non-existent and the story would not be as interesting as it is.
We talked about the fact that life is really a series of beginnings and continuations, twists and turns, until our own deaths. Giselle began her life in the Midwest. She left Ed. She restarted and continued her life in California with Dan. She left Dan. She restarted and continued her life back in the Midwest. She restarted and continued her life in Arizona. Maybe one reason Evening News felt so real was because nothing was ever pat, nothing came easy to any of the characters.
We decided that Giselle's struggle to protect Teddy after the tragedy, her anger at him and at herself, and the guilt she felt for her own participation, or lack of participation, in the shooting was well written.
In fact, we agreed that the book, as a whole, was well written and that we were looking forward to reading and discussing our next selection, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin.
The Literary Bee