by Mary Gordon
In what ways do Adam and Miranda experience the past—is it an ever-present aspect in either of their lives, or does it seem that they don’t often think of it? How do their ideas relate to Yonatan’s, who lets the past go (except for what he cannot escape, his nightmares of the ’67 war), and Clare, who is perhaps too young to have a past long enough to focus on or forget?
Adam and Miranda discuss money much less directly than other topics, though its absence or presence has greatly affected their lives. Miranda has always had money, though it’s unclear if she realizes where her money came from, and how much there is (Adam wonders if she knows it was her mother’s inheritance, not her father’s business acumen). For Adam, money is always a worry—from his youth, when the family tried to keep the cost of his music lessons from him, continuing throughout his life as a teacher and father. What do you see as the role of money in Adam’s and Miranda’s lives separately and when they were together?
Spend some time discussing Adam’s and Miranda’s marriages and families, both their families of birth and the ones they have created. Was Miranda fair to her parents, in keeping her distance from them? Why did she feel much closer to Adam’s mother than her own? What does it mean that one of the reasons she married Yonatan was because he was so unlike Adam? Is the same true for Adam, in regard to both Beverly and Clare? What do you think about him having known Clare since she was thirteen? What parts do Adam’s and Miranda’s children, all four of them, and their siblings, Rob and Jo, play in the narrative?
Regret is a running thread throughout the novel. Do you think Adam and Miranda feel equal regret for their actions? What do you make of the section in which Miranda says “In order to have had the children we have, we had to lead our lives exactly as we did. Therefore, there can be no regrets” [this page] and Adam responds in part by asking “Would it have been better if my son had not been born?” [this page]. As someone with or without children, how would you react to their discussion?
Adam slept with Beverly twice and believed she was on birth control. Miranda slept with Toby and never told Adam. Adam’s betrayal is assumed by both to be much greater. Why is that the case? Do you believe Miranda when she thinks, but does not say, “I too am guilty of lying, by omission” [this page]? Does Miranda believe that she has betrayed Adam? Do their actions bear greater weight because they were each other’s first sexual relationship? When Miranda sleeps with Toby, is the greater betrayal the infidelity of the body or the emotional infidelity of the secret? For Adam, was he betrayed equally by Beverly, or should he assume all responsibility for her pregnancy? What do you make of the scene in which Miranda cuts off her hair, and Adam feels betrayed? “What have you done to me?” [this page] Adam asks, to which Miranda replies with the voice of a generation, “To you? I thought it was my hair. My body” [this page].
Miranda remarks that “forgiveness is irrelevant now because the pain he caused her is long gone and, painless, forgiveness is not difficult, therefore perhaps not worth much” [this page]. When considering how she has hurt other people, Miranda says, “We can forgive those who trespass against us. We can’t forgive those we’ve trespassed against” [this page]. What does it mean to forgive someone? Is there a need to forgive one’s self? What do you make of Adam’s dismissal of Miranda’s confession that she slept with Toby? “Me? I forgive you? It is I who need forgiveness” [this page]. Do you think that Miranda truly forgives Adam? Does Adam forgive himself?
Miranda has converted to Judaism, while Adam stays an unbelieving Catholic—“I don’t have it, the ear for faith” [this page]—though as a teenager he believed that sleeping with Miranda put him in a state of sin. Is faith an active element in either Adam’s or Miranda’s life? Is it perhaps expressed not through religious faith, but through their perspectives on the purpose of their lives? Or through some other outlet?
Adam’s and Miranda’s definitions of what constitutes an ethical and worthy life are different—his music, her saving the world—a divide that began in their youth, and remains their guide to how they see the world. Levi says to Adam, “The question must be not only why do we live but what do we live for? And one of the most important answers, Adam, you must believe me about this, is for beauty. For beauty whose greatness goes on and on” [this page]. Adam believes that his musical gift is the way in which he must “make some kind of mark” [this page], to “create beauty” [this page], while Miranda wants to “relieve suffering” [this page]. In the end, Adam “has not achieved fame, success, even, but he has not given over his calling” [this page]. Do you think Miranda feels the same way about her work? Does either of them deeply value what the other does, or even understand the other’s work? What is your own definition of a worthy life, and in what ways has that question helped direct your life choices?
Do you recognize yourself in any of the characters, particularly with regards to Adam and Miranda, and their spouses, children, or parents? If so, in what ways are you similar, and to what extent do you differ?
Adam and Miranda discuss ideas of belief, age, self-identity, beauty, and what it means to live a moral life, among other issues. Gordon is an author who covers these concepts in compelling and complicated ways, in both her fiction and nonfiction. Have you read any of her other books? How do themes of faith, family, love, and redemption operate here and elsewhere in her work?
The final words in the novel are Adam’s, as he mirrors Miranda’s about being grateful to “These trees. This light” [this page]. These images, based in the natural world, refer in part to two losses—Miranda’s father, her estrangement from him and the way she is able to miss him through the trees he taught her to name; and Adam’s loss of Beverly, or perhaps more truthfully, Beverly’s inability to exist in the world (her suicide note: “it’s too dark for me” [this page]). Why do you think Gordon chose to close The Love of My Youth with these words, and a focus on gratefulness? What was your emotional experience of these final lines, and of the novel as a whole?
Further Reading
E. M. Broner, The Red Squad
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
Tony Judt, The Memory Chalet
Alice Munro, Friend of My Youth
Sigrid Nunez, The Last of Her Kind
Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic, The Big Chill
About the Author
Mary Gordon is the author of six previous novels, including Final Payments, Spending, and Pearl; the memoirs TheShadow Man and Circling My Mother; The Stories of Mary Gordon (winner of the Story Prize); and the recent non fiction work Reading Jesus. She has received many honors, among them a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the 1997 O. Henry Award for Best Story, and an Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.
www.marygordon.net
www.pantheonbooks.com
ALSO BY MARY GORDON
AVAILABLE FROM
PANTHEON AND ANCHOR
IN EBOOK FORMAT
Circling My Mother • 978-0-307-47279-3
Final Payments • 978-0-307-48482-6
Pearl • 978-0-375-42358-1
Reading Jesus • 978-0-307-37859-0
The Stories of Mary Gordon • 978-0-307-49138-1
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Contents
Map
October 7, 2007
Monday, October 8
Tuesday, October 9
Wednesday, October 10
Thursday, October 11
Friday, October 12
Saturday, October 13
Sunday, October 14
September 1964
Monday, October 15
Tuesday, October 16
Wednesday, October 17
; Thursday, October 18
Friday, October 19
Saturday, October 20
Sunday, October 21
September 1967
Monday, October 22
Tuesday, October 23
Wednesday, October 24
Thursday, October 25
Friday, October 26
Saturday, October 27
Sunday, October 28
September 1970
Monday, October 29
Tuesday, October 30
Wednesday, October 31
A Reader’s Guide
About the Author