The Paper Palace (Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition)

by Miranda Cowley Heller

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Do you dream of do-overs? Do-overs at work, in love…Would you grab the chance if you could? When 50-year-old Elle returns to her family’s summer home and reconnects with her childhood love, she must decide what her future will look like. Miranda Cowley Heller’s astonishing debut novel is an utterly compelling story of love and desire, secrets and lies and paths not taken, perfect for reading at home or on the beach, like Commonwealth by Ann Patchett or The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer.

This Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition includes a Q&A with author Miranda Cowley Heller and a reading group guide for book clubs.

“This house, this place, knows all my secrets.”

A story of summer, secrets, love, and lies: in the course of a singular day on Cape Cod, one woman must make a life-changing decision that has been brewing for decades.

It is a perfect July morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace”—the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn’t forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593423042
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/06/2021
Edition description:	Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Miranda Cowley Heller has worked as senior vice president and head of drama series at HBO, developing and overseeing such shows as The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Deadwood, and Big Love, among others. This is her first novel. She grew up spending summers on Cape Cod, and now lives in California.

Reading Group Guide

1. In The Paper Palace, desire and duty are put to the test when Elle Bishop has to choose between the life she always believed she was meant to have with her oldest friend Jonas, and the life she has with her loving husband Peter. Compare and contrast Elle’s relationship with both. What does she get from each?

2. The novel is set in Cape Cod, a setting the author describes with vivid intimacy. In what ways has this place grounded and shaped the lives of the Bishops?

3. The Paper Palace unfolds over twenty-four hours, and fifty years: one day in Elle’s life, and the moments that lead to this day. What do we gain through multiple timelines that we otherwise would not?

4. In the multigenerational story, we see the reverberations of the choices made by grandparents and parents, and the scars they have left on Elle herself. In what way do those scars reveal themselves, and is it possible to break the cycle?

5. The individuals who find themselves at The Paper Palace are as susceptible to the elements as the house is. Consider adult Elle and Jonas’s intimate beach scene, their dangerous sailing trip, etc. What role do nature and the weather play in the story? How is the outside, natural world used to echo Elle’s interior journey?

6. Secrets are at the heart of the novel: the acts that create them, the decisions to keep them hidden. What is the outcome of keeping secrets and how do we see that play out within the novel? Why do you think Elle keeps the secrets that she does from her family? From Peter? Think of a time when you kept a secret. Was it harmful or helpful?

7. The novel is called The Paper Palace. Why? What parallels exist between the camp and the people who inhabit it?

8. How did you interpret the ending? For you, was the major plot of the novel about Elle choosing between two men, or choosing different versions of herself? Explain.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for The Paper Palace:

"Tightly woven and immediate, The Paper Palace takes us deep into a vivid summer landscape, a family, and a private, longstanding love story, and holds us there from start to finish." – Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Interestings and The Female Persuasion

“The Paper Palace turned out to be the very page-turner I needed. If you want to learn something about love over a long time—how it can hurt, how it can soar— read this book.” – Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes 

“Miranda Cowley Heller has written a magnificent page-turner, a love story that shimmers with desire, intelligence, and humor. Lush and gorgeously written, The Paper Palace is as intoxicating as a summer night by the sea. I didn’t want it to end.” – Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest

“Set in the physical and psychic landscape of Cape Cod, The Paper Palace is a fever dream of a novel, luminous with love and shot through with humor and heartbreak. It is a book that explores the indelibility of childhood, what it means to be shaped by place, and all that is unpredictable about the human heart. I couldn’t put it down. “ – Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game

From the Publisher