All the Forgivenesses
Page 34
I had many writing teachers. Bob Green of McPherson (Kansas) College provided early encouragement and advice, as did the late Philip Schneider, as well as James Lee Burke, of Wichita State. Years later in Oregon, when I took up serious writing for the second time, a crucial catalyst was a class taught by Carol Watt at Lane Community College. I also learned from the members of the Brookside Writers Workshop, including Jeanne Bishop, John Groves, Wayne Harrison, Judith Mikesh McKenzie, Diane McWhorter, Rebeca Chaison Morales, Connie Newman, Rosalind Trotter, and the late Erica Atkisson.
Connie and Diane, along with Kelly Terwilliger, formed the Waywords writing group. These three women have met with me weekly for some fifteen years and have patiently read and critiqued numerous drafts of large chunks of this work, some of which ended up on the cutting-room floor. Their patient help and encouragement have been vital. My dear friend Erin Bride has read and supported my work for many years, and my alley neighbor Ritta Dreier kindly provided her sewing room as a weeklong private retreat for me at a critical time during the writing.
Sandra Scofield—wonderful novelist, editor, and teacher—edited an earlier draft of this book and provided invaluable help to me in developing the story and characters. More recently, a seminar on fiction fluency by Eric Witchey, sponsored by Word-crafters in Eugene, has been of great value, as was Eric’s early encouragement. I also benefited from twice attending the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland.
My sincere gratitude goes to my agents, Emma Sweeney and Margaret Sutherland Brown, of Emma Sweeney Agency, who guided me through clarifying revisions that strengthened this work, and to John Scognamiglio, my editor at Kensington Publishing, for his help in both focusing and expanding Bertie’s emotional life. I’m also grateful to Robin Cook, who handled production, and Kristine Noble, who created the beautiful cover.
To my sisters, Sue Wagerle and Lee Ann Moore—you were my first friends and dearest rivals. To my sons, Curtis and Jeff, and my grandchildren, I hope this book will give you a glimpse of the life and times of people who are gone now and who loved you perhaps more than you know.
And to my husband, Charles Hardinger—whom I met on the school bus and whose patience with my writerly struggles is epic—all my everything.
Elizabeth Hardinger
Eugene, Oregon
September 2019
A READING GROUP GUIDE
ALL THE FORGIVENESSES ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of Elizabeth Hardinger’s All the Forgivenesses.
1. How does Bertie’s “voice” affect the way you saw her as a person? How would the story change if it were told by, say, Bertie’s mother? Dacia? Alta Bea? Sam?
2. What would you say are the main themes of the novel?
3. The book portrays key relationships between Bertie and her parents, her two sisters, her friend Alta Bea, and her husband, Sam. Other relationships—such as the triad of Bertie, her mother, and Dacia—are also important. Do any of these relationships embody the themes you identified? In what ways? How do these relationships change over the course of the novel?
4. After her father’s aborted attempt at farming in Missouri, Bertie says that his “spirit got broke” by the older boys’ embrace of mechanization. She adds, “Daddy wasn’t nothing special no more in his own mind.” Is she right? What role does drinking play in his psyche? How is it like or unlike Polly’s use of “dope” given her by the doctor?
5. Did you find Bertie’s plight—social, economic, familial, physical, psychological—relatable? What did you think about the decisions Bertie made to cope with them? Consider also the situations of the other main characters.
6. Bertie says that her finding Sam was “great good luck.” What do you think Sam sees in Bertie (and vice versa)? What keeps them together when things go wrong for them? Looking back on the big turning points in your own life, do you think it was luck (good or bad) that determined the outcome? If not, what was it?
7. Bertie says she failed the “sacred task” of parenting her siblings. Why, then, does she still want children?
8. They say every novel has a “monster.” Who or what is the monster in this novel? Why?
9. Why does Dacia send her own children to Bertie? Were you surprised by that? Did you sympathize with Dacia? How do you think Dacia’s story continues?
10. Bertie struggles to understand how to deal with Trouble. How does Bertie’s struggle with her nephew mirror the overall change she undergoes in the novel?
11. Did you learn anything new about the time and place(s) in which the novel is set? How might the outcomes differ if the story took place today, or in a different region?