Certain Women book discussion questions

Certain Women explores the sensitive issue of death and, more specifically, the fear of dying with unresolved issues. In this novel (which I did not finish), Emma Wheaton disrupts her successful stage career to be with her dying father, David Wheaton. David is also an actor, having performed in a number of plays during his long career. However, he is obsessed with the one play he never got to do – an unfinished play about the Old Testament King David, written by Emma’s estranged husband, Nik.

As David Wheaton’s nine wives and eleven children gather to say their final goodbyes to David, the stories of both him and King David are simultaneously woven together and unraveled.  Since Emma is the main female protagonist, the novel focuses on her upbringing and experiences being raised by the great actor that was David Wheaton.  As she is surrounded by her extended and eclectic family, painful memories resurface that begin to allow her to confront her past and start the process of healing.  As David Wheaton faces his approaching death, Emma grapples with her future.

 http://crazy-for-books.com/2011/02/faith-n-fiction-roundtable-discussion-certain-women-by-madeleine-lengle.html

- Were there too many characters to keep track of and was it difficult to follow the author’s shift from King David to David Wheaton?
- First, if you died today, is there anything left unresolved in your life that you would regret?
- So, can anyone be redeemed, regardless of what he or she has done, as long as they atone for their sins?
- If a person has wronged you in a devastating way, how can we truly just forgive and move on?

July 2013 book: Certain Women

Amy has picked "Certain Women" by Madeleine L'Engle for our July 2013 book. It's a book she's read before and she's always wanted to chat about it with others.

 ABOUT THE BOOK

From Library Journal

In Certain Women , terminally ill David Wheaton, a prominent and much-married American actor, obsessively recalls an unfinished play about King David, a role he coveted. L'Engle explores Christian faith, love, and the nature of God by framing the delayed-maturation story of Emma, Wheaton's daughter, within three subplots: the Wheaton family saga, the story of King David, and the history of the play's development. The characterizations of both Davids are compelling, but the primary interest here is the community of women that surrounds each man. L'Engle describes complex truths very simply, pointing out, for instance, that "Life hurts" and that if there's "no agony, there's no joy." Because she also details the emotional cost of discovering and accepting such concepts, many readers will find these observations memorable rather than simplistic. Appropriate for all but the smallest general collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/92.
- Jane S. Bakerman, Indiana State Univ., Terre Haute

From Publishers Weekly

"Marrying was a habit with me, a bad habit," David Wheaton declares from his deathbed in this disappointing novel by the Newbery Award-winning CK author of A Wrinkle in Time . As the 87-year-old actor's boat plies the waters of the Pacific Northwest, Wheaton looks back on his life with eight wives and 11 children. Also on board is his devoted daughter Emma, stunned by the imminence of her father's death and by the recent dissolution of her marriage to a playwright whose drama about King David and his wives provides the framework for L'Engle's relentless analogies between the Old Testament monarch and the modern-day actor. Recasting the biblical tale as a meditation on love and marriage, L'Engle piles on literary references: David met Emma's mother while making a film version of The Mill on the Floss , named their daughter after the heroine of Madame Bovary and calls his boat the Portia . But name-dropping does not a work of literature make. The epigraph from St. Luke--"Certain women made us astonished"--is not borne out by these two-dimensional characters, who don't astonish in the least as they speak and act by formula. The heavy-handed biblical subtext overwhelms rather than enhances the contemporary drama. ( Oct.