Adelaide Piper
Page 33
with a halt.
Not unlike
a mother’s grip
on a boy
stepping
into the road
or a hare
just aware
of the bobcat
in the underbrush.
What precedes
resuscitation
is the stripping
to sackcloth—
the sitting down
in the cool
gray ashes.
Now I rubbed my jewel, breathed in the moist air, and remembered sehnsucht. It was a German word I’d learned from Mr. Lewis, and the idea of it was coming back to me. Akin to joy, sehnsucht was a wistful longing. A yearning like the itch of the soul.
In one of his books he described it as “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” It was like poetry— how a few words pieced together in just the right sequence could pierce your heart for a moment with a kind of truth.
I was weary to the bone as I pulled my rope and swung in the hammock out over the marsh, but I had sehnsucht beneath the crescent moon on the crab dock, and I was waking up from a kind of sleep I’d never fall back into.
Mr. Lewis believed that our human life is just the first page of the first chapter of a very long book. And I considered this, my eyes darting back and forth in the darkness, while the crickets called and the furnace melted the iron ore, and the four converging rivers pushed their way out to sea.
Acknowledgments
I am heartily grateful for each member of the Westbow Press team, especially my editor, Ami McConnell, whose direction significantly improved Adelaide’s story. Thanks also go to my literary sounding board: Rebecca Kurson, Lisa Hughes, John Pelletier, and my husband, Edward B. Hart Jr., who has skillfully mastered the tricky technique of critiquing with love.
I am indebted to the best group of babysitters a working mom could come by: my parents, Betty and Joe Jelks, and my in-laws and friends, Ed and Mary Hart, Mary Boyd Hart, and Bitsy Andrews.
In addition, I want to thank the following South Carolina bookstores that have greatly supported these efforts: The Cozy Corner on Edisto Island, The Open Book in Greenville, Litchfield Books on Pawleys Island, and the Barnes & Noble booksellers in Mount Pleasant and Charleston.
My utmost and final thanks go to the One who called me to His marvelous light at Adelaide’s vulnerable age.
Reading Group Guide Questions
1. Adelaide is a risk-taker, a pot-stirrer, and one determined debutante poetess. She’s interested in justice almost to a fault, but she has a tender side that sympathizes with her peers and their mutual struggles. In what ways do Adelaide’s passionate attempts to “force things back to where they belong” and to “scratch the itch of her soul” (p. 34) contribute to her sufferings and her occasional loss of control throughout the novel?
2. Consider the “itch of your soul” or to put it another way — the yearning in your heart for a deeper meaning. How do you attempt to satisfy this desire?
3. What does Adelaide’s poetry mean to her? How are her poems used during the course of the story to underscore the arc of her character’s development?
4. Adelaide muses that there are two sides to Williamstown: When she looks out over her crab dock, she sees a subtropical Eden of converging rivers, rice fields, and barrier islands, but when she glances back over her house and toward the center of town, she sees the two fingers of smoke blowing smog into the air. In what ways are there two sides to Nathaniel Buxton University? Do you think the underbelly of college life is accurately depicted in this novel?
5. Consider the fraternity hazing incident and the fate of Brother Benton and Peter Carpenter. Discuss how one choice during youth can have a dramatic impact on the rest of one’s life.
6. Trace Adelaide’s response to her rape. What does this tragic event do to her sense of self? How does Adelaide feel about Devon Hunt? Do you think that her confrontation with him at the end of the novel will further her recovery process? Why or why not?
7. Discuss the doubts that Adelaide faces before her conversion. Can you empathize with her struggles regarding the authenticity of Christianity? In what ways did the following events contribute to her spiritual awakening and subsequent conversion: The HIV test The trip to Harvest Time Church Juliabelle’s incantation and the tonic from Huger Creek The conversations with C.S. Lewis Ruthie’s abortion
8. Why does Adelaide consider the debutante season a charade? How do the generation gaps between her grandmother and her mother contribute to her belief that making one’s debut is an outdated ritual? After an unexpected turn of events on the night of the debutante ball, how does Adelaide’s formal presentation to Williamstown society become linked to her new-found faith?
9. After the initial “honeymoon with her Maker” following her conversion, why does Adelaide’s faith begin to wane? Does she make a conscious decision to distance herself from God?
10. Consider the personal struggles of the following characters:
Zane Piper
Greta Piper
Dizzy
Ruthie
Jif
Harriet
Tobias
What does this novel say about the effect of loss on the nuclear family?
11. Do you think Adelaide and her friends are any closer to finding the answers to the questions that she posed in her valedictorian speech?
Who am I?
And where am I going?
12. In the final poem Second Breath, what does Adelaide suggest one must do before starting over?
13. Picture Adelaide ten years from the end of this story. What do you envision her adult life looking like?
SOUTHERN FICTION
from WESTBOW PRESS
ALSO FROM BETH WEBB HART