Daughters-in-Law
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOANNA TROLLOPE is the author of sixteen highly acclaimed bestselling contemporary novels. She has also written a study of women in the British Empire, Britannia’s Daughters, and, under the name of Caroline Harvey, a number of historical novels.
Joanna Trollope was born in Gloucestershire, and now lives in London. She was appointed OBE in the 1996 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
TOUCHSTONE READING GROUP GUIDE
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Daughters-in-Law
Introduction
Rachel Brinkley has devoted herself fiercely to her three sons and continues to do so now that they are all grown-up. But when her youngest, Luke, marries Charlotte, Rachel finds that her control begins to slip away. Charlotte and Rachel butt heads almost immediately, but when Rachel’s son Ralph discovers his wife’s affair, that quickly takes center stage. Even Edward, the eldest and most settled son, finds his marriage to Sigrid troubled by the family drama.
As these rifts rise to the surface, the Brinkley family is forced to find new loyalties and call old assumptions into question, while Rachel must find a way to preserve the relationships she holds most dear.
For Discussion
1. The novel opens with Anthony fixating on his soon-to-be daughter-in-law’s figure. How does this affect your opinion of him? Does it set any expectations for him as a character or for the book as a whole?
2. Early in the novel, Petra is regarded as the standard by which the other daughters-in-law are judged. Who suffers most from this comparison: Petra, Charlotte, or Sigrid?
3. The daughter-in-law relationship is traditionally more fraught than that of the son-in-law. Why do you think this tension exists? Whom did you identify with the most? The daughter-in-law or the mother characters? Why?
4. The novel shifts perspective many times. How do the varying viewpoints shape your reading experience? Did you like certain characters better than others? Would you have preferred more from a particular viewpoint?
5. How does the author avoid stereotyping the characters? How realistic are the ways in which the characters grow and change throughout the novel? How would you characterize Ralph as a father and husband in comparison to Edward and Luke?
6. Did you find yourself taking sides with any of the characters? Which incidents were the most polarizing? How did your sympathies for the characters shift throughout the novel? Did you understand Rachel’s outburst over Charlotte and Luke’s announcement? Why or why not? Was her reaction forgivable? How would you have responded if your mother or close family member acted similarly?
7. How large a role does proximity and distance play in the family relationships in Daughters-in-Law? Would Sigrid be frustrated with her own family if they were closer, as Edward argues? How large a role does distance play in your own family?
8. How did you react to Luke’s refusal of Marnie’s help? What would you have done if it were you?
9. How much of a role does obligation play in Petra’s relationship with Rachel and Anthony? With the rest of the family?
10. How understandable and/or forgivable were Petra’s actions regarding Steve? Is it an affair even if they never had sex?
11. Steve goes from being a source of comfort to Petra to being verbally abusive. Did you predict this shift? Were you surprised by their argument or by Petra’s response to his proposal?
12. Do you think there are any heroes or villains in the book? If so, who are they?
A Conversation with Joanna Trollope
Daughters-in-Law portrays women from several different generations, ranging from Rachel and Marnie to Petra and Charlotte. How did you go about finding their voices?
I suppose finding the voices of women of different generations is a function of the imagination. While I’m actually writing, I am describing a movie running in my head, complete with sound track, and I’m also conscious of inhabiting each head as a character speaks. So I suppose that what I’m doing is somehow being each person as I make them speak, irrespective of their age or gender.
What are the challenges and conveniences of telling a story from multiple perspectives? How do you decide which viewpoint to tell a certain incident from? For example, why did you focus on Mariella during the lunch debacle at Luke and Charlotte’s?
Just as changes of pace are important in a novel in order to refresh the reader as she or he goes along, so are changes of viewpoint—it’s hard work to read only from one person’s point of view for three hundred pages. It also, I think, gives a novel vividness and charm to surprise the reader sometimes with an unexpected viewpoint, and when adults are behaving badly—as in the scene the question cites—that point can be subtly and powerfully made by seeing their conduct through more innocent (though not less knowing!) eyes. So each scene, in my opinion, is enhanced by being given, as it were, to an often unexpected character as the filter—it gives the narrative validity and energy.
You have written more than fifteen novels. How has your creative process changed over the years? Do you see an arc or progression in your work?
I don’t think the way I write has changed hugely—still the months of research, still the same plotting of the first quarter and then the end, still the handwriting—but I think my style has evolved, rather than changed, and is possibly more economical and lighter now. And that, I’m sure, is a direct response to the loyalty of readers that has (over what is now decades!) given me the confidence to pare everything down a bit and emerge with a way of writing that has more impact and less elaboration.
Daughters-in-Law is full of women who find their strength. For example, Petra and Marnie are very different characters who both unexpectedly take control of their lives. Is this a theme you return to often in your work?
I love female strength and the female capacity for endless self-reinvention as themes for novels. It never ceases to amaze me how women can go on evolving all their lives, and how many of them go on opening their minds to new ideas and fads and fashions at almost any age. And of course, the longer you live, the more you turn into a person flavored by decades of experience, which in turn often rewards you with the confidence that growing up in a largely (still . . . ) male-dominated society (however lovely a lot of those men are!) isn’t there at the beginning. So, acquiring control is still a huge achievement for many women and makes a wonderful topic for fiction, as it’s no less than a kind of real triumph.
You once said that you did not see yourself as a feminist writer. What kind of writer do you identify yourself as?
A contemporary writer. If I’m doing anything, I’m trying to chronicle the way we live now—i.e., how we live as shaped and sometimes dictated by modern customs and morality. And as modern culture affects all of us, I don’t really think my novels are gender, or sociologically, specific.
Anthony and Petra both turn to nature to find comfort and inspiration. What are your own sources of inspiration?
Other people. I can’t get enough of them, whether it’s people known to me or perfect strangers observed on public transport. All fascinating and illuminating.
Are you an artist yourself? What kind of research did you do for Anthony and Petra’s drawing scenes?
Oh, I wish! I can’t draw and I can’t sing and I can’t dance, which is why I am so completely beguiled by people who can! I studied a number of well-known bird artists for this novel . . . and learned a very great deal, but I simply can’t do it myself.
The novel has a marked lack of villains, with the possible exception of Steve. Do you believe there are ever true villains in real life, or are there always extenuating circumstances?
It’s not so much malevolence that makes villains in real life (though there are beasts out there, I know . . .) as muddle. And I think most people are complicatedly shades of gray rather than black and white, good or bad. I don’t even think Steve is a villain. I think he’s an inarticulate man who resorts to anger when frustrated and doesn’t have the words or emotional maturity to express himself any ot
her way. The aim was to make him credible, rather than a simple hate figure, which would have been unbelievable and clumsy—someone who arouses fear because he isn’t fully in control of his stronger feelings.
Is there any kind of message you hope readers will take away from Daughters-in-Law?
Only what I hope emerges from all my books, which is that a bit of empathy towards our fellow humans makes living with ourselves and other people a more successful business!
Why did you choose to focus this novel on the relationship between mothers and daughters-in-law?
Most women have, or are, a daughter-in-law, even in the loosest sense, and also I can’t help noticing that mothers behave differently to their daughters-in-law than they do towards their sons-in-law—even if this last statement is a generalization! And I like to investigate topics that apply to very many of us—I am more interested in the common ground than in any arcane situation that only concerns a very few. . . . And I’m at an age where very many of my friends are mothers-in-law!
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Petra, Anthony, and Marnie are artists in their own right. Plan an art-related activity for the group. Consider visiting a local gallery or museum, taking a drawing class, or visiting a nature preserve to sketch with your book club members.
2. The Minsmere reserve, where Petra meets Steve, is a real place. Find photos, maps, and information about the bird species at Minsmere by visiting www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/m/minsmere/index.aspx.
“[Trollope] aims for the heart and she hits it.”
—The New Yorker
From superb storyteller Joanna Trollope comes an intelligent and emotional story about two families who must confront love and loss as an inheritance hangs in the balance.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
About The Author
Daughters-in-Law
Back Cover