Beyond the Point
Page 40
Counting money for disbursement in Iraq.
Courtesy Mandy Psiaki
American makeshift burn center outside of Mandy’s FOB in Iraq.
Courtesy Mandy Psiaki
Mandy with patient in the burn unit.
Courtesy Mandy Psiaki
(8) It’s safe to say that every cadet who has attended West Point in the last decade has known someone who was killed in action while serving in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Tell me about a friend that you lost.
Charlsey:
Emily Perez was a plebe in my squad when I was a yearling. She was so smart, ran track, tutored all kinds of cadets in different subjects while we were at West Point. She was the first African-American cadet sergeant major at West Point. I was in Iraq when the notification that she’d been killed in action came across the wire. It is such a shock in your body, when you lose someone that was so alive and vibrant. It was so shocking. I felt so alone—but unfortunately, we were taking so many casualties in [2006–2007] that it just became another day’s list. It sounds so callous, but in that environment, you can’t stop working. You just have to keep going. I think in all of those years, I only had the chance to go to one memorial ceremony.
Mandy:
I lost one of my best friends, Tim Cunningham. He died on April 23, 2008, in Iraq. I was also deployed at the time and was hoping to come home for his funeral because I was requested as part of the Red Cross message, but I was told by my commander that if I made the trip I would not be able to take R & R.
At the time, I was on a very small base called Forward Operating Base (FOB) Scania, which was a truck stop along Main Supply Route Tampa. There was only a battalion-sized element at the FOB so there were no other female officers and only one other West Pointer. Thankfully, the West Pointer happened to be my classmate and knew Tim. He was not typically someone who was very emotional, but he was a great support during that time.
Friends hanging out during their college years. In this picture, Mandy Psiaki is holding Conoly Sullivan. Tim Cunningham is on the back of Mandy’s future husband, fellow West Point graduate Dave Psiaki.
Courtesy Mandy Psiaki
(8) Women in the military often get a pretty two-dimensional representation in pop culture. What do you think the stereotype of a woman in the military is today? Do you think a change in perception is needed? Why?
Mandy:
From my perspective, the view on women in the military has changed a lot in the last sixteen years. However, I still believe as a culture we see women in the military as masculine, hard-core, mean, and not family-oriented.
Prior to visiting West Point, even I assumed that all women at the academy were tough and rough around the edges. As a result of my visit, I quickly learned that they were very driven, smart, pretty, and athletic. They all had attributes that I admired, and I was drawn to be part of their sisterhood. They were going to push me to be better in all areas of life, and ultimately that was what I wanted to gain from my college experience.
I would love to see society embrace the fact that there are very strong and beautiful women who are and have been in the military.
Reading Group Discussion Guide
The novel opens with Dani, Avery, and Hannah each choosing to go to West Point for very different reasons. What are their motivations, and how does that set them up for disappointment (and redemption) later in the book? How did you decide where to go to college? Do you have any regrets?
The book cycles through each character’s perspective. Did you have a favorite? Why?
Have you ever visited the U.S. Military Academy at West Point? What were your perceptions about that place, and what have you learned about it through the lens of these characters that you didn’t expect? How do you think you would have coped with the rules and standards of life at West Point as an eighteen-year-old?
The girls’ basketball coach, Coach Jankovich, continually makes life at West Point even more difficult for her players. Have you ever had a coach or boss that operated out of fear and paranoia as she does? Is she the villain of the book? Or is something else (time, distance, war) a greater villain?
Dani, Avery, and Hannah all pursue love and relationships with men in very different ways. Do any of them handle them well? Should they have done things differently?
Dani’s injuries set her life on a totally different path than she’d expected. How does she cope with that change over the course of the novel? Do you think she found her true path in the end? Have you ever had a moment in life when a career path closed? How did you find a new way forward?
For most of the book, Avery is stuck in a pattern of choosing the wrong men—one of whom even ends up going to jail. Is she a victim? Or is she responsible for those relationships?
Hannah makes many of her choices in this book out of a sense of faith and duty, believing that it will all be worth it in the end. In the last scenes of the book, when she confronts God, do you believe she is losing her faith? How have you coped with your ideas of spirituality, when confronted with loss and grief?
The girls prove to be essential friends—the kinds that help carry you through the darkest days of life—as they’re each facing their own crises. In what ways do they show up for one another in the pages of this book? What can you learn from their friendship, in the way that you relate to your friends moving forward?
Do you still keep in touch with your college friends? Why or why not? What about West Point set these women up for a stronger bond?
Advance Praise for Beyond the Point
“In Beyond the Point, Claire Gibson writes a stellar trio of heroines—women I want to hug, women I want to befriend, women I want to be. Hannah, Avery, and Dani enter the male-dominated world of West Point as very different personalities, but they all prove tough as their Army boots as their friendship weathers the tests of school and life, faith and loss, love and war. An inspiring tribute to female friendship and female courage!”
—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network
“As the wife of a veteran of the Iraq war, I sometimes feel it’s hard for others to understand the sense of duty and honor that prompted him to enlist after 9/11. Especially since he was married. Especially since he was a father. Beyond the Point is the rare novel that allows you to feel the importance of family, friendship, and patriotism simultaneously. This compelling read includes poignant reflections on femininity, the vicissitudes of life, the gravity of war, and cost of freedom. Plus, it also offers hours of page-turning fun with believable women . . . women you know . . . women you are . . . women you want to be.”
—Nancy French, author of Home and Away: A Story of Family in a Time of War
“In Beyond the Point, Claire Gibson crafts a compassionate, engrossing portrayal of friendship and womanhood that illuminates the grueling world of West Point Academy and the harrowing realities of war. The book reminds us that in our darkest hours, despite tensions and time, best friends show up, helping us find the light.”
—Bryn Chancellor, author of Sycamore
“Love stories are not always about who you’re romantically involved with. Or, they shouldn’t be. This is a story about the friendships that form us. That free us from who we thought we had to be, and help us find out who we really are. It’s a book that will make you want to call your best friends, or be a better one.”
—Nora McInerny, author of No Happy Endings
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
BEYOND THE POINT. Copyright © 2019 by Claire Gibson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontr
ansferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover images © VectorDIY / marchello74 / senee sriyota / Shutterstock (3 Images); © Ilaria Saccani / EyeEm / Getty Images (girls’ silhouettes); © Panoramic Images / Getty Images (background buildings)
Title page art © Lauren Ledbetter
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition APRIL 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-285373-8
Version 02272019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-285374-5 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-0-06-288433-6 (hardcover library edition)
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