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    What Is Left the Daughter

    What Is Left the Daughter

    3.3 30

    by Howard Norman

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      ISBN-13: 9780547487090
    • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
    • Publication date: 07/06/2010
    • Sold by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
    • Format: eBook
    • Pages: 256
    • Sales rank: 115,157
    • File size: 2 MB

    HOWARD NORMAN is a three-time winner of National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a winner of the Lannan Award for fiction. His novels The Northern Lights and The Bird Artist were both nominated for National Book Awards. He is also author of the novels The Museum Guard, The Haunting of L, What Is Left the Daughter, and Next Life Might Be Kinder. He divides his time between East Calais, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.

    Read an Excerpt

    What Is Left the Daughter
    MARLAIS, today is March 27, 1967, your twenty-first birthday. I’m writing because I refuse any longer to have my life defined by what I haven’t told you. I’ve waited until now to relate the terrible incident that I took part in on October 16, 1942, when I was nineteen.
     Your mother, Tilda Hillyer, frequently consulted The Highland Book of Platitudes, which had 411 pages. She had it practically memorized. She found instruction and solace in that book, even the solution to certain puzzles about life. But I thought all those platitudes put together avoided the fact that life is unpredictable. For instance, after moving hotel to hotel here in Halifax for many years, I’ve finally returned to my childhood house at 58 Robie Street, which I never thought I’d set foot in again.
     In fact, it’s now three A.M.—I scarcely sleep anyway—and I’m writing at my kitchen table.
     Two Sundays ago, I stopped in at Harbor Methodist Church. On occasion I do that. More out of nostalgia than present faith, to say the least. Anyway, when I entered the church Reverend Lundrigan was recounting some ancient parable or other in which an elderly woman listens to her son hold forth about how much heartbreak, sour luck and spiritual depletion can be packed into a life. But talk as he might, the man from the parable fails to address the one thing his mother is most curious about. “What of your daughter?” she asks. “Have you seen her? How is her life? Do not doubt that wonderment may be found when you find her again.” Turns out, the man hasn’t seen his own daughter in ages. “Rain, wind, hunger, thirst, joy and sorrow have visited her all along,” the woman says. “Yet her father has not.” She listens more, all the while experiencing a deeper and deeper sadness, until finally she says, “And what is left the daughter?” She doesn’t mean heirloom objects. She doesn’t mean money. She doesn’t care about anything like those. She says, “I think you have a secret untold that keeps a distance between you and her and the life you were given.”
     Well, Marlais, you know how people talked in biblical times. Still, when I left the church, I thought, Strange how you can’t predict during which happenstance you might take something to heart. And right then and there I understood that all I had to leave you, really, is what I’m writing here. I’ve read some of the English poet John Keats, and he said something to the effect that memory shouldn’t be confused with knowledge. Of course, I have no way of knowing if, after you’ve read a paragraph or two, any curiosity you might’ve had will abruptly sour to disgust, or worse. Yet I hope you’ll see these pages through. And that whatever else you may think, whatever judgments you come to, please at least accept the knowledge that I’ve always loved you, without cease.

    Reading Group Guide

    1. What is the meaning of the epigraph, taken from Erasmus? What, for Wyatt, would be the “unaccustomed Element”?

    2. Discuss the significance of the novel’s title, taken from a parable recounted in the opening chapter.

    3. How does history intervene and intensify courtship and marriage – not just between the main characters but, for instance, with war brides?

    4. Was the murder of the German philology student Hans Mohring a race-related crime or a crime of passion or something else altogether?

    5. How does the construction of love triangles play out in this story?

    6. Constance uses the word “provisional” (p. 79) to describe the way friendships work, and marriages too. What does she mean by this?

    7. Constance gives Wyatt a poem to read by Elizabeth Bishop, titled “Casabianca” (p. 80). What do you think is the meaning of the poem for Constance? For Wyatt? What does it mean to you?

    8. Why do you think Donald becomes so obsessed with the news of the German U-boats, perhaps more than anyone else in Middle Economy?

    9. After the terrible crime, Wyatt describes himself as “fully volunteering in the aftermath” (p. 124). Do you agree?

    10. Time and again, radios enter the narrative. Discuss how radios impact the thoughts and experiences of the people in Wyatt’s life. Why are radios so important in the book?

    11. What did you think of Wyatt’s emotional state throughout the novel? Did his behaviour at times surprise you? What did you think of his character as events progressed?

    12. Describing Lenore’s unhappy life, Cornelia Tell says, “In your life happiness is either cut to your length or isn’t” (p. 20). What does she mean by this? Is happiness cut to Wyatt’s length? What does this philosophy reveal about Cornelia herself?

    13. Wyatt describes Tilda as “too much beauty” (p. 29). Why do you think he uses this phrase? What is it about Tilda that makes him fall in love? Do you think the feeling is reciprocated?

    14. Discuss the meaning of forgiveness in the novel. Who is forgiven, by whom and why? What about when forgiveness does not take place? What is the consequence?

    15. Wyatt is the sole narrator of this novel. Do you trust his words in general? Is he being fully honest throughout?

    16. What do you think Marlais’s response to this letter will be? Will she forgive Wyatt? Should she? Did you feel like you had a sense of the character of Marlais in absentia?

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    Howard Norman, widely regarded as one of this country’s finest novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his major books—The Bird Artist, The Museum Guard, and The Haunting of L—in this erotically charged and morally complex story.

    Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different bridges—the result of their separate involvements with the same compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin Tilda.

    Setting in motion the novel’s chain of life-altering passions and the wartime perfidy at its core is the arrival of the German student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical incidents—including a German U-boat’s sinking of the Nova Scotia–Newfoundland ferry Caribou, on which Aunt Constance Hillyer might or might not be traveling—lend intense narrative power to Norman’s uncannily layered story.

    Wyatt’s account of the astonishing—not least to him— events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It’s a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one.

    An utterly stirring novel. This is Howard Norman at his celebrated best.

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    Publishers Weekly
    Set on the Atlantic coast of Canada during WWII, Norman’s latest (after Devotion) is an expertly crafted tale of love during wartime. Wyatt Hillyer loses both his parents on the same day when they jump from different bridges in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after they discover they are both having affairs with the woman next door. Wyatt’s aunt and uncle take him in, and Wyatt becomes his uncle’s apprentice in his sled and toboggan business and, despite the circumstances, soon falls in love with his adopted cousin, Tilda. Yet he must resign himself to loving from a distance when Tilda brings home Hans Moehring, a German university student. The two begin a courtship harshly complicated by reports of U-boat attacks on Canadian ships, and Tilda’s father becoming increasingly uneasy about this potential enemy in their midst. Norman’s writing is effortless, and his plot is grand in scope but studded with moments of tenderness and intimacy that help crystallize the anxiety and weariness of life on the home front. That Norman is able to achieve so much in 250 pages is a testament to his mastery of the craft. (July)
    From the Publisher
    "The quiet power of this book comes on slowly and unrelentingly, offering a mesmerizing look into one man’s past. Creating one of the most captivating and effective uses of the retrospective letter format in recent memory, Norman’s prose is understated, eloquent and perfectly chosen, and his novel paints a picture of one man’s legacy that will not soon be lost." 
    —BookPage

    "The latest from master of precision Howard Norman is again set in the gray majesty of Nova Scotia, where 17-year-old orphan Wyatt Hillyer moves in with his devoted aunt and uncle and their adopted daughter, Tilda, the love of stoic Wyatt's life. The ravages of Hitler and his dastardly German U-boats lurking beneath Canadian waters hit their home hard. In What Is Left the Daughter, Norman writes with spare elegance and dry humor, and the extraordinary emotional power of his slim new novel is earned with authentic grace. Grade: A" 
    —Entertainment Weekly

    "Fans of Howard Norman's THE BIRD ARTIST will recognize the venue and the oddball characters in the author's beautiful new novel, WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER....Norman turns a tiny town into an entire world in which even the most heinous sins can—almost—be forgiven." 
    —O, The Oprah Magazine

    "Howard Norman has captured the fear and suspicion that World War II brought to the East Coast perfectly, as news reports circulate and the silent and spooky threat of the U-boats is ever-present….Norman also captures the speech and texture of life in Nova Scotia with gentle humor and deft description…No improvement needed [for WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER]; it is perfect." 
    —Shelf Awareness

    "[A]n expertly crafted tale of love during wartime…Norman’s writing is effortless, and his plot is grand in scope but studded with moments of tenderness and intimacy that help crystallize the anxiety and weariness of life on the home front. That Norman is able to achieve so much in 250 pages is a testament to his mastery of the craft."
    —Publishers Weekly , STARRED

    "Norman (best known for The Bird Artist, 1994) scores again with this gripping account of a family ripped apart by obsession and murder...It is extraordinary that a story which carries such a weight of sorrow is never depressing, but Norman the master craftsman pulls it off." —Kirkus, STARRED

    "Norman’s piquant insights into life’s wildness, human eccentricity, and love’s maddening persistence are matched by rhapsodic and profound descriptions of everything from perfectly baked scones to pelting rain and the devouring sea, while anguish is tempered with humor, thanks to rapid-fire banter and marvelously spiky characters." 
    —Booklist, STARRED

    "Howard Norman’s new novel, WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER, is the best story of love in the time of war I’ve ever read. And yes, that includes COLD MOUNTAIN AND A FAREWELL TO ARMS....WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER affirms what many of Howard Norman’s readers have known since he published his magical first novel, THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. Norman is most certainly one of America’s three or four best novelists, with a uniquely wise and tolerant vision of his characters and all human beings everywhere. So let’s not mince words. WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER is a literary masterpiece that will, I guarantee it, live on in your heart, and mine, forever." —Howard Mosher, Amazon.com

    "Howard Norman is a master storyteller, packing provocative details into virtually every sentence of this short, but hardly slight, novel....What is left the daughter—and the reader—here is the gift of one man's utterly human, heartbreaking life story." 
    BookBrowse.com

    "This saga of sorrow, love, and a father's desire to meet his grown daughter displays power...moving" —Boston Globe 

    "You lean in, trying to catch every word, lulled by [Norman's] voice as he describes the most ordinary lives that just happen to be punctuated by macabre accidents. . . . Norman offers a kind of rough-hewn poetry throughout [with an] ardor that shimmers just below the surface." —Washington Post

    "Reminiscent of a classic Robert Frank black-and-white photograph, this candid, everyday portrait discloses intricate webs of wistfulness and resignation. Norman raises absorbing moral quandaries, particularly about the possibilities of forgiveness...The epistolary form of this novel is a cri de coeur from an author faithful to the printed word in a time of promiscuous texting, friending and tweeting. Students today who can't write in cursive are able to e-mail across the world. The reflective, personal storytelling in "What Is Left the Daughter" reminds us of the potential beauty, intimacy and wisdom offered by two endangered genres

    —the letter and the novel." —Los Angeles Times

    Kirkus Reviews
    Norman (best known for The Bird Artist, 1994) scores again with this gripping account of a family ripped apart by obsession and murder. In format, the novel is a long letter written by Wyatt Hillyer to Marlais, the daughter he scarcely knows, to explain the "terrible incident" that has kept them apart. But Wyatt must start with something equally terrible. In 1941, when he was 17, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, his parents jumped to their deaths from separate bridges; they were unhappily in love with the same woman. Wyatt leaves Halifax to live with his Uncle Donald, Aunt Constance and adopted daughter Tilda in their small town, and becomes apprenticed to his sled-making uncle. The hoped-for sanctuary is anything but. Wyatt has exchanged his parents' erotic obsession for his uncle's obsession with German U-boats swarming beneath the Atlantic; on top of that, he is now an unhappy lover himself, yearning for Tilda. It is his rotten luck that Tilda should have fallen for Hans Mohring, a German philology student. Wyatt accepts his fate as the rejected suitor-no histrionics for him. Meanwhile the news that Constance, on a ferry, is among the latest U-boat victims, catapults Donald into madness. He murders Hans (already married to Tilda) and has Wyatt help him dump the body in the ocean. Donald confesses and gets life; Wyatt, morally innocent but legally culpable, draws a short sentence. After his release, he makes love to the bereft Tilda, just once. In time Tilda will move with their baby Marlais to Denmark, home to Hans's parents; now, in 1967, Wyatt is making full disclosure to his grown daughter. Though himself a victim twice over, and still feeling the pain of his parents' deaths, he has never complained. Norman has developed this brave, emotionally reticent man with great delicacy. It is extraordinary that a story which carries such a weight of sorrow is never depressing, but Norman the master craftsman pulls it off.

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