Read The Excellent Lombards Online
Authors: Jane Hamilton
The Excellent Lombards (31 page)
That is the pleasure of writing about childhood and teenagehood! Although Frankie was born around 1987, so her childhood takes place in a very different time than mine. She was born just as Steve Jobs was hitting his stride in his first stint at Apple. It’s tricky, although not impossible, to imagine being a baby now, swiping through the parents’ photos on an iPhone. The challenge and pleasure of writing a child: trying to access how a child lives at a sensory level that is far more intense than the average adult’s: heat, cold, taste, smell—the world new, a heady brew to absorb. One must try as best one can to remember how it all felt, and how bewildering the adult world seemed, and how essential it was to create a private world, a place to which to retreat. When I was a girl I lived in and retreated to the worlds I found in books. Frankie has that escape hatch, too.
Jim encounters many obstacles in running and maintaining the integrity of his orchard, a number of which are raised in the town meeting Frankie attends. Are these issues indicative of difficulties faced by your own orchard?
Yes. Land-use issues are issues for farmers the world over. How can we preserve what we’ve built? How can we live in the world with people who have different values when it comes to land? Should landowners be granted privileges for their holdings, or should they be supported? Are large tracts of woods, owned by a single person, good for the community and the ecosystem as a whole? How much regulation should the government impose when it comes to property and farmland? Time-honored problems.
The section where Frankie interviews May Hill, rather than being a dry, lackluster conversation with an old woman, is interesting in its emotional intensity and horrific elements. Can you discuss what sparked the decision to include this?
May Hill is crucial to the solution of the farm crisis, to the matter of succession. I knew that Frankie had to have a major event with her. Frankie considers marriage to various bachelors who could affect the solution (after she understands that she can’t marry her brother—or her father, for that matter). She comes to believe that May Hill regards her as a frivolous person, as a girl who couldn’t possibly be a serious contender. That first scene allows Frankie to have her initial display as an unfit future farmer.
What was your thought process behind
The Excellent Lombards
title?
Finding the right title is often a trial-and-error process. The title has to somehow hold the book. At first the novel was called
The Boy Who Could Do Anything
. Then it was called
During the Reign of the Lombards
. I very much liked the idea of monarchy in the title. But it didn’t have the right music, that title. And it was a mouthful. When Mrs. Kraselnik says, “Let’s give another hand for the excellent Lombards”—I thought,
The excellent Lombards—that’s what this book is about
.
Reading group guide copyright © 2016 by Jane Hamilton and Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Jane Hamilton’s novels have won literary prizes, have been made into films, and have been international best sellers, and two of them,
The Book of Ruth
and
A Map of the World
, were selections of Oprah’s Book Club. Her nonfiction has appeared in the
New York Times
; the
Washington Post
;
Allure
;
O, the Oprah Magazine
;
Elle
; and various anthologies. She’s married to an apple farmer and lives in Wisconsin.
The Book of Ruth
A Map of the World
The Short History of a Prince
Disobedience
When Madeline Was Young
Laura Rider’s Masterpiece
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us at
hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters
Contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Welcome
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Early
- 1. This Story Always Starts Here
- 2. Two Terrible Discussions
- 3. The Situation
- 4. Our Gloria
- 5. The Four–Five Split
- 6. The Incident During the Fifth Cloth
- 7. The Mysterious Family Photograph
- 8. Meanwhile Stephen Lombard Halfway Moves in with Gloria
- 9. Winner and Loser
- 10. How Hard Must the Pumpkin Visitors Work?
- 11. My Mother Is Right
- 1. This Story Always Starts Here
- Middle
- Late
- Acknowledgments
- Reading Group Guide
- Discussion Questions
- A Conversation with Jane Hamilton
- About the Author
- Also by Jane Hamilton
- Newsletters
- Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2016 by Jane Hamilton
Author photo by Leslie Brown
Cover design by Rebecca Lown.
Cover photograph Cig Harvey.
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
grandcentralpublishing.com
twitter.com/grandcentralpub
First Edition: April 2016
Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
Excerpt from “Bear” from
Headwaters
(W.W. Norton, 2013) used with permission of Ellen Bryant Voigt.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hamilton, Jane, 1957 July 13- author.
Title: The excellent Lombards / Jane Hamilton.
Description: First Edition. | New York ; Boston : Grand Central Publishing,
2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015044431| ISBN 9781455564224 (hardback) | ISBN
9781455564217 (ebook) | ISBN 9781478939283 (audio cd)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Family Life. | FICTION / Coming of Age. |
FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Bildungsromans.
Classification: LCC PS3558.A4428 E93 2016 | DDC 813/.54--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044431
ISBNs: 978-1-4555-6422-4 (hardcover); 978-1-4555-6421-7 (ebook)
E3
Table of Contents
1. This Story Always Starts Here
2. Two Terrible Discussions
3. The Situation
4. Our Gloria
5. The Four–Five Split
6. The Incident During the Fifth Cloth
7. The Mysterious Family Photograph
8. Meanwhile Stephen Lombard Halfway Moves in with Gloria
9. Winner and Loser
10. How Hard Must the Pumpkin Visitors Work?
11. My Mother Is Right
12. The New Hero
13. The Mistake, the Worst Mistake
14. Blossom Day
15. The Historical Beginning of the Infinite World
16. A Possible Marriage Match
17. In Which We Play Euchre
18. Mail-Order Bride
19. My Father Holds Back the Waters
20. The Fears of MF Lombard, Part One
21. MF Lombard’s Fears, Part Two
22. The Fruit Sale
23. Future Farmers of America