Donnelly Library's Lovely, Dark, Deep Discussion Highlights

Donnelly Library had its fourth meeting of the Pulitzer Prizes Reading Group on Thursday, November 10, 2016 when we got together to discuss Joyce Carol Oates’s short story collection, Lovely, Dark, Deep.

This was our reading group’s second time to meet and discuss a short story collection; at the third meeting, we had discussed Cheever’s short story collection. Oates is a divisive author. Some reading group members love Oates and some hate her writing. However, no matter how participants felt about the stories, there was dynamic discussion at our meeting. Some of the highlights from the discussion include the below. 

• The stories focus on the relationship between the sexes and often include fragile women characters who depend on male approval, often the approval of a husband or father. The group discussed if Oates’s portrayal of women is old fashioned or if many American women today still define themselves in relation to the men in their lives.

• Group members noted a lack of dialog between the characters in these stories or at least a lack of serious discussion between the characters. Participants observed that a lot is communicated between the characters without being said. This was seen in the first story of the collection, “Sex with Camel,” where the grandson and grandmother joke around with each other, but Oates still lets the reader know how much the characters care about each other and how ill the grandmother is.

• Two of the stories that the discussion focused on were stories about authors: “Lovely, Dark, Deep” and “Patricide.” The group discussed why stories about authors are popular and if they may be especially appealing to authors and awards committees. These two short stories also sparked a discussion about how what we know about an author can color how we view their work. We discussed if literature should be judged entirely separately from the author and if it is possible to divorce a poem or a novel from the image of the creator.

• Short story collections can pose difficulties for reading group discussions as there isn’t one main narrative for the group to discuss together as there is when the group is reading a novel. Reading group participants may all want to discuss different stories. On the other hand, short story collections provide reading groups with the opportunity to explore many different works by an author at one time.

Personally, reading Oates always makes me what to read more Oates (or in the case of this collection, I wanted to read more of Oates’s fiction and to revisit Robert Frost’s poetry).

What did you find most interesting about the fourth meeting’s discussion or about the short stories? Please post in the comments below.

Books truck display of books by Joyce Carol Oates,
Robert Frost's poems, and books about Frost.

Questions for Donnelly Library's Discussion of the Lovely, Dark, Deep

Donnelly Library’s Pulitzer Prize Challenge reading group has its fourth meeting on Thursday, November 09. Below are a few questions to think about for the upcoming discussion.

Take a look at the questions and please post your own questions or discussion points for this short story collection in the comments below.

• A common theme of the books we have read for this reading group is that characters are haunted by their pasts. What events or traumas haunt the characters of Oates’s short stories?
• Oates writes a great deal about the relationship between the sexes in these short stories. What does she have to say about the role of women and the role of men in American society though these stories?
• In the title story of the collection, Oates paints a dark, brutal portrait of beloved American poet Robert Frost. In this story what is Oates criticizing, Frost himself, literary celebrity, literary biographies, biographical interpretations of literature, or a combination of these things?
• Including this short story collection, Joyce Carol Oates has been a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist 4 times (her other finalist books include her novel Black Water, finalist in 1993, her novel What I Lived For, finalist in 1995, and novel Blonde finalist in 2001). Why do you think she continues to be nominated for the prize, and why does she continue not to win?

Donnelly Library's The Stories of John Cheever Discussion Highlights

Donnelly Library had its third meeting of the Pulitzer Prizes Reading Group on Thursday, October 13, 2016 when we got together to discuss The Stories of John Cheever. 

This was the longest and most daunting of the book selections so far at over 700 pages and including over 60 stories written over the course of Cheever’s career.  During the discussion of the short stories many different things were discussed including the below. 

• The role of the short story in the history of American Literature and how Cheever and the magazine he published the most frequently in, the New Yorker, fit into this history. It was interesting to learn that several MFA (Master of Fine Arts) programs in writing call Cheever’s collected short stories the “Orange Bible,” and consider him to be at the height of short story craftsmanship. It was also interesting to learn from the facilitator that though Cheever is thought of as writing realistic stories, it is his surreal stories like “The Swimmer” or “The Enormous Radio” for which he is best known.

• Several reading group participants noted Cheever’s careful and skillful use of language and imagery in his writing. Together the reading group took a close look at key phrases and sentences in several stories. 

• The group discussed if part of Cheever’s popularity was due in part to a bias toward New York centered fiction from both publishers and literary award committees.

• The group further discussed the literature of the postwar suburbs and how Cheever fit into this tradition. Other important works about the suburbs of 1950s America, such as Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road, and the New Yorker short stories of John Updike, were discussed and were on the book truck display during the meeting. 

What did you find most interesting about the third meeting’s discussion or about the short stories? Please post in the comments below.

Anne Enright Reads John Cheever's The Swimmer

His life was not confined and the delight he took in this observation could not be explained by its suggestion of escape.”
― John Cheever, The Swimmer

Reading The Stories of John Cheever at Donnelly Library, Las Vegas, NM

Donnelly Library’s Pulitzer Prize Challenge reading group has its third meeting on Thursday, October 13, 2016 to discuss The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever.

The list of my (April's) top ten favorite stories so far is below. Brandon said "The Swimmer" is his favorite Cheever story of all time. What stories stood out to you from the collection? Post your favorite stories in the comments below. 

1. Goodbye, My Brother, p. 3-21
2. The Enormous Radio, p. 33-41
3. The Sorrows of Gin, p. 198-209
4. The Day the Pig Fell into the Well, p. 219-235
5. The Five-Forty-Eight, p. 236-247
6. The Housebreaker of Shady Hill, p. 253-269
7. The Country Husband, p. 325-346
8. The Angel of the Bridge, p. 490-497
9. The Geometry of Love, p. 549-602
10. The Swimmer, p. 603-612

The Shorter Short Stories of John Cheever

Last Tuesday, Octavia Fellin Library in Gallup, New Mexico had its Pulitzer Discussion Group on "The Stories of John Cheever" and while there was some considerable disagreement about the content of the book, there was definitely one unifying belief between our readers: This book is too long.  And I can't really dispute that.  700 pages of short stories is a lot for the casual reader.  It's a lot for the advanced reader!

So after our discussion, I decided to "shorten" the collection a tad.  Largely based on the favorites (or occasional least favorites) of our readers, I've put together a list of 15 Must Read Short Stories from "The Stories of John Cheever."  If you are looking for a great book for your book club or discussion group, but this collection seems too daunting, try this, more manageable, selection...

1. Goodbye, My Brother
2. The Enormous Radio
3. O City of Broken Dreams
4. Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor
5. The Sorrows of Gin
6. The Day the Pig Fell into the Well
7. The Five-Forty-Eight
8. The Duchess
9. The Lowboy
10. The Death of Justina
11. Clementina
12. The Brigadier and the Golf Widow
13. An Educated American Woman
14. The Swimmer
15. The Fourth Alarm

The real benefit of trimming down the book is in the primary complaints I heard about the book from our readers: "It's too long," "All the stories started to blend together," and "I started to forget some of the stories."  These are the kind of statements that I dread hearing, and I know that our readers would have gotten more from less.  

To really appreciate Cheever, or any short story author, one needs to take their time and enjoy each story individually, like eating a nice desert.  I loved "The Stories of John Cheever," and I really wanted others to share that love.  But it got to be too much for our readers, like eating way too much of a nice desert.  It became hard to really enjoy the flavor.  A shorter list like the one above would be easier and more pleasant to digest for anyone interested in reading Cheever for their discussion group or book club.

Bon Appétit!

4 Big Questions for a John Cheever Discussion

I'm an optimist.  I believe that everyone who shows up to the Gallup Pulitzer Discussion Group will have read "The Stories of John Cheever," this 700-page collection, from beginning to end, retaining absolutely every story perfectly in their minds.  But what if...let's say... a couple people only get halfway through.  We all want them to participate in the discussion too.  While I have plenty of questions that pertain to individual stories, I'd like to share some of the broader topics, we'll address that will make it easier for everyone to get a turn.

   1. What does Cheever seem to think of the typical nuclear family?

It's probably not hard to guess how Cheever felt about the nuclear family. If you've read one story, you don't have to guess his feelings toward the upper-middle class and wealthy white world. But this is an opener. People that read even a single story can start citing sources and picking through details.

2. Do the families portrayed in John Cheever stories still exist today?

I've rephrased this question half-a-dozen times in my head, and I'll probably do it a dozen times more before the discussion. What I'm trying to get at: Cheever's works really have a specific feel, a specific time, a specific place. Husbands all have mistresses and wives are all trapped at home. Perhaps some readers will think family structures have changed to no longer reflect the ones in his stories. Perhaps some readers will think they have not.

3. How are male-female relationships portrayed?

All general questions have a million-billion specific ones that can follow, and this one, in particular, can branch out in a million-billion different directions. Perhaps, because I am a man, I found the way Cheever writes men particularly fascinating. Our masculine protagonists are ignorant of their families, constantly cheating on their spouses, failing at work, and irritated by the tiniest of domestic issues, almost without exception. Women can be just as horrible in his tales, but they usually live like caged birds. I'd love to know how other readers felt about these two groups and how/why they clashed against each other.

4. How does the evolution of technology affect the people in these stories?

This is kind of an odd one, but John Cheever's stories take place when a whole lot of new/advancing technologies were drastically changing the world. A few examples I can think of are in The Enormous Radio, The Swimmer, and The Brigadier and the Golf Widow. Do radios, and swimming pools, and bomb shelters (and nuclear bombs!) change relationships and outlooks of people, and in what ways?

So these are four questions that can easily be used to boost discussions of John Cheever's works. They should function pretty well for those who finished the book, those who got halfway through, and those who jumped around, reading the stories that sucked them in, and skipping those that didn't.

Gallup Discussion: Lovely, Dark, Deep - Turning Bonobo

Most of Joyce Carol Oates' stories in "Lovely, Dark, Deep" are firmly set in reality.  The problems people have in the story are typically those we could face in the real world.  Three exceptions can be found in the collection.

Forked River Roadside Shrine, South Jersey is a kind of ghost story.  Anyone whose seen a roadside shrine, usually decorated in pictures, flowers, and the occasional teddy bear, immediately knows their meaning.  They exist to memorialize someone who died in a car or motorcycle crash, and often serve a second purpose, reminding everyone of the dangers of the road.  Forked River follows the spirit of "Kevie" as he witnesses people from his past visit his shrine.

Jesters is a very different ghost story, one where the ghosts might be a bit more active in the physical world.  An elderly couple feels harassed by their noisy neighbors, only to find that the house is long abandoned.  But for our discussion group, there were some strange moments in the story where our protagonists' perspectives are called into question, like when they can't figure out which one of them drove to "the Jesters'" house.

The members of our group saw similarly unreliable storytelling in Betrayal.  In this story, a young man gets an internship at the zoo working with bonobos and his parents are not particularly thrilled.  As he grows to love this non-paying job, his father, in particular, becomes hostile towards it, noting there was "no future" in the zoo.  Towards the end, the son seems to disappear, until the parents realize that a new bonobo in the habitat is there son.  He had betrayed them for the bonobos!


In a collection where most of the stories are pretty comfortably grounded in normalcy and upper middle class problems, this is by far the strangest story.  Some of our readers had their doubts about the son, Rickie's, transformation.  Whether the parents were delusional or Rickie really did turn bonobo, the story was a clear metaphor.

Members of the group pointed out Rickie's rejection of his parents' values.  "All of us feel somewhat estranged from our kids," one reader noted.  The parents had a hard time accepting the path Rickie was choosing for himself.  They couldn't understand him, and one person suggested, "the world of bonobos was just as strange to the parents as his own chosen lifestyle."  So maybe they really had thought Rickie turned into a bonobo, but it wouldn't have been much different to them if he had just joined the zoo staff instead.  It still would have been a betrayal in their eyes.

Clovis-Carver Public Library Discusses Lovely, Dark, Deep by Joyce Carol Oates

Lovely Dark Deep Discussion Questions:


Have you had any experiences similar to any characters in the stories

2. Did any of the stories change the way you think?

3. How do the main characters demonstrate significant character growth or decline?

4. How is the setting used to enhance the stories?

5. Which passage did you find particularly profound or interesting?

"Oates’ short stories are captivating, sad, compassionate, and haunting. They continue to capture the uncertainty, hurt, and darkness in all of us. Her fertile mind is our gain."

Libraries in Deming, Clovis, and Las Cruces are currently reading Lovely Dark, Deep, by Joyce Carol Oates.  Read along with us, join the conversation.  To help get you started, read the Washington Independent's Review of Lovely, Dark, Deep.

review/lovely-dark-deep-stories by the Washington Independent

Here are some of the questions we will be discussing at tomorrows get together at the Waymaker Christian Bookstore in Deming, NM. Give us some input on what you think of Lovely, Dark, Deep.

1. “Sex with a Camel” is a story with the most positive relationship in this collection. There’s a suggestion that there is something different about a relationship between a grandchild and grandparent and something special that these two characters share. How would you describe it? How did they both nurture the connection between them? What do you think of the symbolic meaning of the grandmother driving to the hospital and the grandson driving home?
2. . In “Sex with a Camel,” the story focuses on the boy taking his grandmother, who has cancer, to the hospital for treatment. At one point the boy thinks that he is “sick of his own sad story.” Do you think that there is more to his sad story than what we are reading about here?
3. “The Mastiff” is a suspenseful story with a high level of fear deliberately created. “If you are not afraid of much in life, you haven’t experienced life yet! There is much, much to be fearful of, though perhaps it is not a good idea to know this. The disasters that you might expect are not likely to happen, but others will, totally unexpected ones. Out of nowhere, they will come, and you will say, ‘but I had no idea’. That is the point: you have no idea. Just wait?” How does this attitude toward fear and the unknown resonate or not with you?
4. In “The Mastiff” the author made a conscious decision to refer to the two characters as “the woman” and “the man” though their names come up at some point. What do you think was the reason for that? Are they intended to be types or specific people? Did it engage you or distance you from the characters?
5. In “The Mastiff”  the main character, Mariella, is a single (never been married) woman about to turn 41, while in “The Hunter” the main character, Violet, is also a single (never been married) woman about to turn 40. One owns an art gallery and the other is a successful poet. Reading these two stories together, what do you think about how JCO presents these independent woman?
6. “The Hunter” has several threads running through it as opposed to, say,  “The Mastiff.” Oates brings in the underground railroad, an affair with a single middle aged poet and the President of a small college, the looming death of the woman’s father and an italicized incident of a homeless man biting her lip – a visible vulnerability. Why do you think Oates brought all these threads into the story? Do you think that she resolved them? How did this affect your sense of the story?
7. The opening couple of pages of “The Hunter” are a brilliant description of the setting-the college president’s historic mansion. How does this description of the setting skillfully lay the groundwork for the climax of the plot and the themes of the story?
8. The majority of short stories use the technique of flashback to inform the reader about what’s happened in the past of the story. In “The Disappearing” there is a nine page flashback to an incident that took place when the couple was young and newly married and they came home to find their house burglarized and they called the police. This is a lot of pages to devote to a flashback in a short story, so how is what we see in that flashback so crucial to this whole story? Do you feel it represented a turning point in their marriage?
9. “The Jesters” is a surreal account of a pivotal summer in the lives of an aging suburban couple where life seems to be falling apart as they knew it. Confronted by a mysterious, evolving  yet questionable presence, the “Jesters” become a foil for their lives as well as an active player in it.
   How did these “Jesters” bring into focus the character of the couple’s life together and the direction it is taking?
10. What do you make of the bizarre turn the story takes when the couple in “The Jesters” actually drive to the neighbors’ house to find it an abandoned wreck where an arson involving fatalities occurred some years back? Does this shift the story from what seemed like realism into a Ghost Story in this climatic scene?
11. Both “The Disappearing”  and  “The Jesters” are about empty nesters—two upper middle class couples who seem to be falling apart emotionally. The wife in “The Jesters” thinks: “She no longer made inquiries. Much of his life was separate from hers as if each was on an ice flow, drifting in the same direction yet drifting inevitably apart.” In “The Disappearing,” the wife thinks: “In marriage the most intense conversations were often with oneself.” What view of the empty nester marriage do you get from these two stories? How relevant does it seem that both couples seem to be from the same socio-economic class?