The Trumpet Lesson
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10. Does the title The Trumpet Lesson suit the novel? Explain. Do you believe that people learn life lessons from music lessons? Explain. Would you propose a different title for the novel?
11. What was your emotional experience of reading the novel? How did you feel when you finished the novel?
12. Some questions are left unanswered in the novel. How would you answer them?
About the Author
Photo credit: Chris Loomis
DIANNE ROMAIN lives with novelist Sterling Bennett in Guanajuato, a colonial city in the central Mexican highlands. She grew up and went to college in Missouri before moving to Berkeley for graduate school. After completing her PhD in philosophy, she taught feminist ethics and philosophy of emotion at Sonoma State University and published Thinking Things Through, a critical thinking textbook. When writing The Trumpet Lesson, she took up the trumpet. Now she teaches Lindy Hop. Her current writing projects set in Guanajuato include short stories and another novel.
dianneromain.com
SELECTED TITLES FROM SHE WRITES PRESS
She Writes Press is an independent publishing company founded to serve women writers everywhere. Visit us at www.shewritespress.com.
American Family by Catherine Marshall-Smith. $16.95, 978-1631521638. Partners Richard and Michael, recovering alcoholics, struggle to gain custody of Richard’s biological daughter from her grandparents after her mother’s death only to discover they —and she—are fundamentalist Christians.
A Cup of Redemption by Carole Bumpus. $16.95, 978-1-938314-90-2. Three women, each with their own secrets and shames, seek to make peace with their pasts and carve out new identities for themselves.
Anchor Out by Barbara Sapienza. $16.95, 978-1631521652. Quirky Frances Pia was a feminist Catholic nun, artist, and beloved sister and mother until she fell from grace—but now, done nursing her aching mood swings offshore in a thirty-foot sailboat, she is ready to paint her way toward forgiveness.
Shelter Us by Laura Diamond. $16.95, 978-1-63152-970-2. Lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mom Sarah Shaw is still struggling to find a steady happiness after the death of her infant daughter when she meets a young homeless mother and toddler she can’t get out of her mind—and becomes determined to rescue them.
Eden by Jeanne Blasberg. $16.95, 978-1-63152-188-1. As her children and grandchildren assemble for Fourth of July weekend at Eden, the Meister family’s grand summer cottage on the Rhode Island shore, Becca decides it’s time to introduce the daughter she gave up for adoption fifty years ago.
In a Silent Way by Mary Jo Hetzel. $16.95, 978-1-63152-135-5. When Jeanna Kendall—a young white teacher at a progressive urban school —becomes involved with a community activist group, she finds herself grappling with issues of racism, sexism, and oppression of various shades in both her professional and personal life.