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Overview
In a suburb near Albany, New York, Ted and Ann Waring are waiting for divorce papers. Ted is hoping for reconciliation, but when he returns from a hunting trip with the couple’s two adolescent daughters, he loses his temper one last time, shooting and killing Ann in their living room. He claims it was an accident, but his thirteen-year-old daughter, Julia—the only witness—is sure it was murder. The younger girl, Ali, doesn’t know which way to turn. And when Julia testifies against her father, she sets into motion a struggle that pits family, friends, and townspeople against one another.
As the many layers of truth unfold in this “chilling meditation on the so-called acts of love” (The New York Times) Emily Listfield’s lean and subtle prose reveals the ways in which the emotions and evasions of the past reverberate uncontrollably into the present.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781416558743 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Atria Books |
| Publication date: | 03/18/2008 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 384 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.31(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The dried leaves she had raked that morning rustled in the late-afternoon breeze. She turned to the door, thinking that perhaps it was footsteps she had heard, until the breeze died down and there was only silence, and Pete Conran's car driving up across the street, home from work at 5:45, home from work every night at exactly 5:45, some families were like that. Ann Waring walked to the base of the stairs and called up. "Come on, girls, get a move on. Your father will be here any minute. Julia? Ali?"
Ali came down first, her bright orange knapsack falling from her shoulder, Ann's younger daughter, still softly blurred, tryingnow to hide her excitement, unsure if it was quite appropriate. This tentativeness was new, one of the things that had happened this year.
"Did you remember to pack an extra sweater? It's going to be cold up there."
"Yes, Mom." Disdainful of her worry, but wanting it still, the maternal vigilance that she was not yet used to leaving.
Ann smiled at her and called back up the stairs. "Julia?"
Julia came clumping down, her narrow face, beneath a wedge of thick bobbed hair, planed by resentment. Ann remembered when she had been, if never a blithe child, at least somehow lighter. She suspected that the change could not simply be ascribed to the past year, or to Julia's nascent adolescence, when a shroud of sulkiness is to be expected, but that it had begun sometime when Ann's back was turned, her attention elsewhere. She had tried to ferret through the past to find the moment that she had so carelessly missed, but it remained elusive, scrupulously guarded by Julia's remoteness, and the only hard fact Ann was left with was her own discomfort with her elder daughter.
"I don't know why you're in such a hurry." Julia's voice was low, sharp. "You know he's always late."
"I keep thinking maybe he'll surprise us."
"That's dumb."
Ann knew that she was right, knew, too, that Julia blamed her for all the times she had waited, made them wait, for one thing or another, a sign, a change, sure that this time Ted would surprise them, just as Julia blamed her when she had stopped waiting, blamed her for that, too, in her intransigent thirteen-year-old heart.
Julia watched her mother closely, regretting it, as she always did, when she was aware of having hurt her, but repelled by how easy Ann made it. "Why do we have to go hunting anyway?"
"Because it's your weekend to spend with your father."
"But why do we have to go hunting?"
"I don't know. Because his father took him."
"So?"
Ann frowned, exasperated. Early on, Ted, resigned to what he referred to as the conspiracy of women beneath his roof, had decided that the best response was to raise his daughters not as sons, but as if they would be as naturally interested in the activities that he had previously presumed only sons, boys, would be. He brought them home model planes, he took them to his construction sites, he taught them how to throw a ball without pivoting their wrists, and they prospered. Only at times did Ann, who approved of the inclination as much as she disapproved of hunting, wonder how much of Ted's emphasis on his daughters' self-reliance was a subtle rebuke to herself.
"Just try it," Ann snapped.
All three stopped when they heard Ted's car driving up, embarrassed suddenly to look at each other, to witness their own stopping, the orbit they still formed around him, the hole he had left. Ann tensed when she heard the key in the front door.
Ted strode in, oblivious, his muscular body and dark, febrile eyes radiating confidence for the weekend, for all the pleasures that would follow, for his own power to obliterate the past. "Hey guys, you ready to bag some deer?"
"I told you, I don't like you using your old set of keys." Ann, hands on hips, unnatural, metallic. "You don't live here anymore."
He smiled easily. "We can fix that."
Julia took a step forward. "I don't want to go hunting. It's disgusting."
Ted took his eyes slowly from Ann, her auburn hair, just washed, falling to the neck of a white sweater he didn't recognize. "It's not disgusting. There are way too many deer. Half of them will starve to death this winter."
"But why do we have to kill them?"
"Because that's the way nature is. There aren't a lot of pacifists out in the wild."
"Try not to pollute their minds too much up there, okay?"
Ted laughed.
"There are no bears, are there, Dad?" Ali asked nervously.
"And lions and tigers and..."
"Stop it, Ted. You're scaring them."
"These girls don't scare quite so easily, do you? Listen, guys, why don't you go wait out in the car? I want to talk to your mother for a minute."
They looked to Ann for affirmation, and Ted, noting this, always noting this, rolled up on the balls of his feet and then back, while she gave them the little nod they sought. Julia and Ali started for the door.
"Hold on there," Ann called out. "Don't you have a hug for your old mom?"
They came back to embrace her while Ted watched this, too; it was, after all, how it should be. Ann held them too long, greedily inhaling the duskiness of their necks. She stood up reluctantly and watched them go, Julia turning to her just once before she went out the door, making sure. Ann and Ted waited until they left.
He took a step closer. "Well? Have you thought about it?"
"About what?"
He scowled impatiently. The other night, her lips, her mouth, her very soul resisting, and then not, taking him as he took her, body admitting what mind could not: need, belonging. "Didn't the other night mean anything to you?"
"Of course it did." She looked away. "I'm just not sure what."
"C'mon, Ann. You know as well as I do that the whole last year has been a mistake."
"Maybe the other night was the mistake."
"You don't mean to tell me you're happy like this?"
"I wasn't happy before, either."
"Never?"
"Not for a long time." The end overshadowed the beginning, she made sure of that, so when she thought of them now there was only the endless litany of daily petty crimes, predictable, insoluble, an ever-increasing spiral that left them finally with no ground underfoot, just the marshy quagmire of resentment. "I can't go back to how it was."
"It doesn't have to be that way."
"No?"
"I can change."
"What do you want from me, Ted? You're the one who left."
"Stupidest thing I ever did. What I want is to make it up."
"What makes you think it would be any different?"
"We still have passion."
"If you ask me, passion is a great excuse for a whole lot of crap."
He smiled. "A whole lot of fun, too."
She smiled partially, meeting him, and then shook her head. This was what was new, what was different, this shaking off, a muscle tic so slight and fragile.
"What about all the good times?" he pressed on. "You think you'll ever feel that way with anyone else? You won't."
"I know that, Ted," she said quietly. "But I'm not sure that's so terrible."
"Goddamn it, Ann, what do you want from me?" His voice was harsh, edgy. "I'm doing everything I can to help you and the girls. What do you want?" He backed off, lowered his voice. "I'm sorry. All I'm asking is that you think about it before you sign the papers. For the girls' sake."
"That's not playing fair."
"I know." He stepped so close that she became lost momentarily in the deep grooves that radiated from the corners of his eyes to his chin. They had been there since he was twenty, demarcations of experiences he had not yet had. "I love you."
She swayed back suddenly. "You'd better go. The girls are waiting for you. Ted, promise me you'll be careful up there. All that stuff they watch on TV, I don't think they know that guns aren't toys."
He laughed. "Your problem is you worry too much. Always have. The only thing that's gonna get shot is a bunch of Polaroids." He headed for the door. When his hand was wrapped around the highly polished brass knob, he turned. "What are you doing this weekend?"
"Nothing much. I'm on duty at the hospital."
His shoulders hunched. He dreaded her hospital stories, her obsessive recounting of the minute details, the shape and depth of wounds, the piecemeal erosion of the body by illness, how she swam in the specifics of the sick, the dying, until she was in danger of drowning in them, and taking him along. "Well, in between bedpans, I want you to think about us. That's all. Just think about us. Okay?"
She nodded slowly. He watched her long enough to be certain, and then he nodded, too.
"Good," he said, smiling. "That's good."
He didn't try to kiss her goodbye; he was much too smart for that. Copyright © 1994 by Emily Listfield
Reading Group Guide
Summary
In a suburb near Albany, New York, Ted and Ann Waring are waiting for their divorce papers. Ted is hoping for reconciliation — until, after returning from a hunting trip with their two adolescent daughters, he loses his temper one more time.
Was Ann's death an accident, or was it murder? Thirteen-year-old Julia testifies against her father, setting in motion a struggle that pits family, friends, and townspeople against one another. Julia and her eleven-year-old sister, Ali, must weather the scrutiny of the townsfolk and their schoolmates as they struggle to adjust to living with their mother's sister, Aunt Sandy. In the meantime, Julia is working as hard as she can to skyrocket away from everyone who loves her while Ali is dazedly trying to find truth and balance between loyalty to her sister and love for her father. Sandy, wrestling with a burgeoning relationship that threatens to turn into marriage, something she's both longed for and feared all her life, finds herself mining the past for clues about her own role in her sister's death. And Ted must face all of his demons as every flaw in his character is paraded out for examination, his sixteen-year marriage dissected in front of everyone he knows.
As the many layers of truth about the killing unfold in the courtroom and in the characters' lives, this deeply moving and often chilling narrative explores the ways in which the emotions and evasions of the past reverberate uncontrollably into the present.
Discussion Points
The opening pages of the novel move between both Ted's and Ann's point of view. What do these early glimpses reveal about these characters? And as the novel took you back in time to see Ted and Ann before and throughout their marriage, were the opinions you formed of them at the beginning of the novel borne out? Why or why not? How did your opinion of these characters change?
Among other relationships, this novel explores the dynamics of sisterhood. Compare the relationship between Sandy and Ann with the relationship between Ali and Julia. What might account for the points of similarity and disparity?
How does placing the most critical moment of the novel — Ann's killing — at the beginning affect how you read the rest of the story? How does the structure of Parts and an Epilogue (versus traditional chapters) affect the way the story is told? Did you like it? Why or why not?
It is often said that children are a reflection of their parents. In particular, the parents in this novel struggle with manic depression and alcoholism, two genetic disorders that can also affect the family environment, which shapes personalities. In what ways are the sons and daughters in this book reflections of their parents? In what ways have they consciously broken the patterns they observed growing up?
Ann tells Sandy, "Marriage is a muddy business." In many ways, that seems to be the theme of Acts of Love. Compare and contrast the marriages of Estelle and Jonathon and Ann and Ted and the relationship between Sandy and John. Are any of them "normal"? Use examples from the novel to explain your perspective.
Ted's stepfather, Jonathon, Ted, and John all exemplify different ways of being a husband, or partner, to their significant others. Identify moments in the novel, such as Jonathon's sharp response to Sandy on page 58, that illustrate the "style" of partnership these men exhibit.
On page 20, Ted tells Julia, "There were no angels living in that house." Why does he say this? In what ways did Ann and Ted hurt one another? In what ways did they love one another? What is the significance of Ted's comment?
Discuss Ted and Ann's releationship. Do you think that Ann really loved Mark Karinski, or was it something else? Were you surprised to learn that Ann cheated on Ted? Why or why not? Do you agree with Ted's assessment that the problem with him and Sandy is that they are too similar? If you agree, in what ways are they similar? If you disagree, explain why.
Ted tells Ann that he can change, and Ann points out that she already has. Do you believe that people can change? Identify any characters that you think change over the course of the novel, and give examples to show why you think they have.
Periodically throughout the trial, the author allows us to peek inside Judge Carruthers's point of view, such as when she notes her own son's run-in with the school counselor and her comparison of Ted to her ex-husband. Why do you think the author does this? Is she being judicious?
There are many different people pulling and pushing at Julia and Ali throughout this story. Identify these people and describe their motivations. How do they deal with the publicity surrounding the trail, their peers, and their family? What is the popular opinion?
In the end, why do you think Ali lies? How does this choice affect her relationship with her family? Do you see any evidence that it changes her?
The final scene of the novel is quiet, chilling, and a little vague. What did you take away from the ending?
Enhance Your Book Club Experience
Emily Listfield is praised for her ability to create suspense and captivate her readers. She uses foreshadowing, a literary device that entails dropping subtle hints of what is to come throughout the novel. Sometimes these hints point to a plot twist, while others pull readers breathlessly through to the climax of the story. Draw a map of the clues dropped throughout Acts of Love and identify what aspects of the plot they pointed to. For fun, have each member of your book club mark on the map the point at which they "figured it out."
In the small town of Hardison, some people find the best entertainment in daily visits to the courthouse. Check with your local courthouse to see what upcoming trials might be open to the public, and plan an outing with your book club to sit in on a trial. Some courthouses even offer informative tours that can teach you more about the legal system and your local government. You can find the nearest federal district court by visiting this site: http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/lookup.html. State and county courthouses can easily be found in your local phone book or online.
Emily Listfield is also the author of several other novels. Spend a little time reading from her body of work and see if you can spot similar character types, plot threads, or sentiments throughout.
Introduction
Summary
In a suburb near Albany, New York, Ted and Ann Waring are waiting for their divorce papers. Ted is hoping for reconciliation — until, after returning from a hunting trip with their two adolescent daughters, he loses his temper one more time.
Was Ann's death an accident, or was it murder? Thirteen-year-old Julia testifies against her father, setting in motion a struggle that pits family, friends, and townspeople against one another. Julia and her eleven-year-old sister, Ali, must weather the scrutiny of the townsfolk and their schoolmates as they struggle to adjust to living with their mother's sister, Aunt Sandy. In the meantime, Julia is working as hard as she can to skyrocket away from everyone who loves her while Ali is dazedly trying to find truth and balance between loyalty to her sister and love for her father. Sandy, wrestling with a burgeoning relationship that threatens to turn into marriage, something she's both longed for and feared all her life, finds herself mining the past for clues about her own role in her sister's death. And Ted must face all of his demons as every flaw in his character is paraded out for examination, his sixteen-year marriage dissected in front of everyone he knows.
As the many layers of truth about the killing unfold in the courtroom and in the characters' lives, this deeply moving and often chilling narrative explores the ways in which the emotions and evasions of the past reverberate uncontrollably into the present.
Discussion Points
The opening pages of the novel move between both Ted's and Ann's point of view. What do these early glimpses reveal about these characters? And as the novel took you back intime to see Ted and Ann before and throughout their marriage, were the opinions you formed of them at the beginning of the novel borne out? Why or why not? How did your opinion of these characters change?
Among other relationships, this novel explores the dynamics of sisterhood. Compare the relationship between Sandy and Ann with the relationship between Ali and Julia. What might account for the points of similarity and disparity?
How does placing the most critical moment of the novel — Ann's killing — at the beginning affect how you read the rest of the story? How does the structure of Parts and an Epilogue (versus traditional chapters) affect the way the story is told? Did you like it? Why or why not?
It is often said that children are a reflection of their parents. In particular, the parents in this novel struggle with manic depression and alcoholism, two genetic disorders that can also affect the family environment, which shapes personalities. In what ways are the sons and daughters in this book reflections of their parents? In what ways have they consciously broken the patterns they observed growing up?
Ann tells Sandy, "Marriage is a muddy business." In many ways, that seems to be the theme of Acts of Love. Compare and contrast the marriages of Estelle and Jonathon and Ann and Ted and the relationship between Sandy and John. Are any of them "normal"? Use examples from the novel to explain your perspective.
Ted's stepfather, Jonathon, Ted, and John all exemplify different ways of being a husband, or partner, to their significant others. Identify moments in the novel, such as Jonathon's sharp response to Sandy on page 58, that illustrate the "style" of partnership these men exhibit.
On page 20, Ted tells Julia, "There were no angels living in that house." Why does he say this? In what ways did Ann and Ted hurt one another? In what ways did they love one another? What is the significance of Ted's comment?
Discuss Ted and Ann's releationship. Do you think that Ann really loved Mark Karinski, or was it something else? Were you surprised to learn that Ann cheated on Ted? Why or why not? Do you agree with Ted's assessment that the problem with him and Sandy is that they are too similar? If you agree, in what ways are they similar? If you disagree, explain why.
Ted tells Ann that he can change, and Ann points out that she already has. Do you believe that people can change? Identify any characters that you think change over the course of the novel, and give examples to show why you think they have.
Periodically throughout the trial, the author allows us to peek inside Judge Carruthers's point of view, such as when she notes her own son's run-in with the school counselor and her comparison of Ted to her ex-husband. Why do you think the author does this? Is she being judicious?
There are many different people pulling and pushing at Julia and Ali throughout this story. Identify these people and describe their motivations. How do they deal with the publicity surrounding the trail, their peers, and their family? What is the popular opinion?
In the end, why do you think Ali lies? How does this choice affect her relationship with her family? Do you see any evidence that it changes her?
The final scene of the novel is quiet, chilling, and a little vague. What did you take away from the ending?
Enhance Your Book Club Experience
Emily Listfield is praised for her ability to create suspense and captivate her readers. She uses foreshadowing, a literary device that entails dropping subtle hints of what is to come throughout the novel. Sometimes these hints point to a plot twist, while others pull readers breathlessly through to the climax of the story. Draw a map of the clues dropped throughout Acts of Love and identify what aspects of the plot they pointed to. For fun, have each member of your book club mark on the map the point at which they "figured it out."
In the small town of Hardison, some people find the best entertainment in daily visits to the courthouse. Check with your local courthouse to see what upcoming trials might be open to the public, and plan an outing with your book club to sit in on a trial. Some courthouses even offer informative tours that can teach you more about the legal system and your local government. You can find the nearest federal district court by visiting this site: http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/lookup.html. State and county courthouses can easily be found in your local phone book or online.
Emily Listfield is also the author of several other novels. Spend a little time reading from her body of work and see if you can spot similar character types, plot threads, or sentiments throughout.