Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

by Chris Bohjalian

Overview

A Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Best Book of the Year

Emily Shepard is on the run; the nuclear plant where her father worked has suffered a cataclysmic meltdown, and all fingers point to him. Now, orphaned, homeless, and certain that she’s a pariah, Emily’s taken to hiding out on the frigid streets of Burlington, Vermont, creating a new identity inspired by her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. 

Then she meets Cameron. Nine years old and with a string of foster families behind him, he sparks something in Emily, and she protects him with a fierceness she didn’t know she possessed. But when an emergency threatens the fledgling home she’s created, Emily realizes that she can’t hide forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307743930
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/26/2015
Series:	Vintage Contemporaries Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	77,437
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Chris Bohjalian is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Sandcastle Girls, Skeletons at the Feast, The Double Bind, and Midwives. His novel Midwives was a number one New York Times bestseller and a selection of Oprah's Book Club. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages, and three of his novels have become movies (Secrets of Eden, Midwives, and Past the Bleachers). He lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter. Visit him at www.chrisbohjalian.com or on Facebook.

Hometown:

Lincoln, Vermont

Date of Birth:

August 12, 1961

Place of Birth:

White Plains, New York

Education:

Amherst College

Website:

http://www.chrisbohjalian.com

Read an Excerpt

PROLOGUE

I built an igloo against the cold out of black plastic trash bags filled with wet leaves. It wasn’t perfect. The winds were coming across the lake, and the outside wall that faced the water was flat—not like the igloos I had seen on TV somewhere or I guess in a book. It looked like the wall on the inside of a cave: flat and kind of scaly. But the outside wall that faced the city looked round like a melon. I couldn’t stand all the way up inside it, but in the middle I could crouch like a hunchback. It was big enough for three people to lie down if you curled up, and one night we had to squeeze in four. But most of the time it was just Cameron and me. I really had to trust the fuck out of someone before I would let them anywhere near Cameron in the night. But, the truth is, people came and went. You know how it is. Especially in the winter. But the igloo kept me warm. Warmer, anyway. I mean, it’s not like I got frostbite. I knew kids and grown-ups who did. I knew one kid who got gangrene. They say the doctors had to cut off both of his feet, but I don’t know that for a fact because I never saw him again.
I’m going to try and tell you only the things that I know for a fact are true. When I’m guessing, I’ll be honest and tell you I’m guessing.
You build the igloos in the day when the leaves are soaked but the ice has melted from the sun, and then they freeze at night inside the bags. So does the water on the outside of the bags; that’s why the bags stick together like glue.

******

Some people said I left the shelter because someone must have tried to rape me. No one tried to rape me. I left for a couple of reasons. I mean, I did feel kind of hounded—by the other girls, one especially, but not by the people who ran the place. The “staff.” Whatever. One of the girls was starting to suspect who I was, and I knew that once my secret was out, she’d turn me in. I thought she’d want no part of me. And you know what? I wouldn’t have blamed her. A lot of days I wanted no part of me.
Also, I knew the staff wanted me gone. Or, at least, they wanted to figure out who I really was. They were getting pretty frustrated because they couldn’t find my parents. My story was starting to unravel. So, I just left.
Given that I was always kind of—and here’s a pretty awesome little euphemism—a troubled teen, it’s a miracle that the counselors who ran the shelter didn’t send me packing a lot sooner. It wouldn’t have surprised a lot of people who knew me if I really had managed to get myself thrown out on my ass. But I didn’t. That’s not what happened. I was already plenty scared, and so I tried playing by the rules. I tried to behave. But it didn’t work. And so it would be the last time I’d try for a while.
This was back in the days when the city was still trying to figure out what to do with the walkers. Technically, I was a walker, even though I didn’t walk. I stole a bike and rode to the city from the Northeast Kingdom. I don’t know how many miles that is, but it took me two full days, because I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was in, like, fourth or fifth grade. The worst was going up and over the mountains. I just walked the bike up the eastern slopes. That took an entire afternoon right there. One time a guy in a bread truck gave me a lift, but he only took me about twenty miles. Still, a lot of those miles were uphill, so I was grateful. Lots of people—most people—had families or friends in the city or the suburbs around Lake Champlain who could take them in. And people were taking in total strangers. Vermonters are like that. I guess decent people anywhere are like that. But there were still a lot of walkers just pitching tents in City Hall Park or sleeping in their cars or pickups or out in the cold, or building their igloos down by the water. Squatters. Refugees.
I guess it would have been a lot worse if Reactor Number Two had exploded, as well. You know, gone totally Chernobyl. But it didn’t. It was only Reactor Number One that melted down and blew up. 

******

When I was a little kid, I used to take my American Girl dolls and play orphanage. The make-believe stories were always based on A Little Princess. The movie and the book. Whatever. One of my dolls would be a beautiful rich girl who suddenly winds up poor and in an orphanage. No mom or dad, no aunts or uncles. Some of the other girls hate her, but some love her. The woman I had running the place was always a total whack-job bully. Think of that lunatic in the musical Annie. She was the model. So, I guess, Annie was an inspiration, too. When I got bored, I’d simply have the girl rescued. Her dad or her mom and dad would just show up at the orphanage. Boom. Game over.
Sometimes I tried playing the game with Barbies, but that never worked. The Barbies looked pretty hot. If they were going to be trapped somewhere, it sure wasn’t going to be in an orphanage. It was going to be someplace way more awful. I know that now, too. 

******

My family had a beautiful woodstove. Not one of those black boxes that look like they do nothing but pollute the crap out of the air. It was made of gray soapstone that was almost the color of my mom’s favorite piece of jewelry: an antique necklace that was made of moonstones. I think it had once belonged to my grandmother. It was Danish. Anyway, the woodstove had a window in the front that was shaped like the window in a castle or a palace. I’m sure there’s a word for that shape, and I will look it up.
 My dad or mom would build a fire in the woodstove when we were all home on the weekend and hanging around in the den. The den was next to the kitchen, and the woodstove would heat the den and the kitchen and even the TV room on the other side of the kitchen. The rooms had baseboards and LP gas heat, too, of course. The whole house did. It was pretty new. I know now that a lot of people called our kind of house a meadow mansion or a McMansion behind our backs, but we didn’t build it. We just moved there from a suburb of New York City when I was a little kid.
 There was a thermostat stuck through a pipe-cleaner-sized hole in the stovepipe about a foot and a half above the soapstone box. When we had a fire going, my dad wanted it to be around four hundred to six hundred degrees. When it got above six hundred, one of us would close up the flue and the temperature would go down. If it got above eight hundred, you were in danger of a chimney fire. The thermostat was kind of like a car’s speedometer: the numbers went a lot higher than you were ever going to need. It went up to seventeen hundred, and you were totally fucked if it ever got that high. We’re talking chimney fire for sure.
My parents’ running joke when the woodstove thermostat climbed above six or seven hundred? It was “Chernobyling”—or about to melt down. I can still hear my mom’s voice when she would say that to my dad when he would come home from skiing late on a Saturday afternoon: “Honey, be sure and watch the stove when you add a log tonight. The damn thing nearly Chernobyled this afternoon.” You wouldn’t know it from the things people write or say about my dad these days, but he could be very funny. My mom, too. They could both be very funny.
I guess that’s why I use “Chernobyl” like a verb.
I don’t use Fukushima or Fukushima Daiichi like verbs. 
But I could. After all, Fukushima had a pretty fucked‑up end, too. And it even sounds a bit like a swear. 

******

I don’t know why I began my story with the igloo. The igloo was really the beginning of the end—or, maybe, the end of the beginning. Here’s a sentence I read about me in one of the hospital staff’s case management notes: “Every kinship had fallen away.” Well, yeah. Duh. Even Maggie—my dog—was gone.
By the time I was building my igloo, the worst of the shit-storm was over. At least it was for most of Vermont. It wasn’t for me, of course. It wasn’t for a lot of us from up in that corner of the Kingdom. But it was for most everyone else. By the time I was building my igloo, I was just another one of the homeless kids who freaked out the middle-aged people at the Banana Republic or Williams-Sonoma when they saw me on the street or in the mall in Burlington.
So, maybe I shouldn’t begin with the igloo. Maybe I should begin with the posse and the SSI apartment where we crashed. That was a home, too, if a home is a place where you can say you lived for a while. Or I could begin with the Oxies—the OxyContin. Or the robbery. Or Andrea Simonetti, who for a few months was like a sister to me, but now I have no idea where she is and I worry. Or I could begin with Poacher or the johns or the tents with the squatters. Or the shelter—with the girls in the shelter. Or the people who tried to help me. (Yeah, there were sometimes people who wanted to help me.) Or I could begin with Cameron.
Or maybe I should just begin at the beginning. With Reactor Number One.

Reading Group Guide

The questions, discussion topics, and suggestions for further reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, Chris Bohjalian’s gripping new novel about a teenage runaway fighting for her life and her dreams in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster.

1. Emily says, “Obviously I made some bad choices. I’m still here, however, so I made some okay ones, too” (p. 41). How much does her fate depend on her own decisions, wise or unwise? What role do events beyond her control—in particular, the public’s unrelenting hostility toward her father—play in these decisions (pp. 41, 53)?

2. Emily overhears a National Guardsman saying that “the energy company will want this to be human error. If it’s human error, then nuclear power doesn’t look so bad. . . . And [the Shepards are] both dead by now. There’s not a lot of collateral damage when you have dead people you can blame” (p. 77). Do you think this is an accurate assessment of how industries and perhaps governmental agencies react to disasters? Can you think of real-life examples when this might have occurred?

3. Emily’s descriptions of her life as a runaway and of Cameron’s childhood experiences (pp.162-63, 166) are often grim and graphic. For the most part, Emily presents them in a straightforward, almost flip manner (p. 172, 174-5, 187). How does this illustrate the realities of life on the streets? What do her attachments to Andrea, Camille, and especially Cameron, and her reminiscences about her parents (pp. 113-14, 201, for example) show about Emily’s ability—and need—to deal with the harsh situations she faces? 

4. In telling her story, Emily moves back and forth in time. How does her narrative reveal her state of mind and the ways in which she perceives or filters her experiences? Do the language and the style accurately reflect the voice of a teenage girl? What passages ring particularly true to you?  What is the significance of her noting, “Sometimes when I reread what I’ve written, I find myself creeped out by what’s between the lines. What I haven’t written” (p.48)?

5. Why does Emily divide her story into B.C., “Before Cameron,” and  A.C., “After Cameron”? Does the division represent something more than mere chronology

6. How would you characterize Emily’s decision to return to the Northeast Kingdom? Is she acting foolishly or is her decision understandable, a necessary, essential conclusion to all that has gone before?

7. Many of the stories we read about teens in crisis explore the lives of those raised in crime-ridden, poverty-stricken areas. Emily comes from an educated, upper-middle-class family, and lives in a “meadow mansion.”  What does she share with troubled teens from less fortunate backgrounds? In what instances do Emily’s reactions to her circumstances embody the positive aspects of her upbringing?

8. Did you know where the title of the novel came from before it was revealed (p. 238)? Why do you think Bohjalian chose this phrase as his title? How does it relate to Emily’s philosophy about the world and the challenges she faces over the course of the novel?

9. How would you describe the overall mood and tone of the novel? How does Bohjalian balance the darkness at the heart of the story with an engaging, often humorous portrait of its protagonist? Would you call Emily a heroine? Why or why not?

10. How do the quotations from Emily Dickinson throughout Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands illuminate the themes of the novel? Consider the relevance of “I’m Nobody! Who are You?,” one of Dickinson’s best-known poems (p. 59), as well as the extracts on pages 19, 78-79, 134, and 154. Does the use of Dickinson’s poetry enrich your experience as a reader? Why is Dickinson’s life, as well as her poetry, so appealing to Emily?

11. Several serious accidents have occurred at the nuclear plants on Three Mile Island, and in Chernobyl and, most recently, at Fukushima Daiichi. What is your opinion on Emily’s assertion about the public’s reaction to these and similarly horrific events: “We watch it, we read about it, and then we move on. As a species, we’re either very resilient or super callous. I don’t know which” (p. 139)?

12. Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands deals with some of the most difficult issues of our times: the possibility of nuclear catastrophe, homelessness, drug dealing, prostitution, and child abuse. In what ways does it offer insights that news reports and official studies cannot duplicate?

Editorial Reviews

Chris Bohjalian is a master. . . . Emily Shepard is his greatest accomplishment.” —Los Angeles Times
  
“Suspenseful, provocative, often terrifying yet compassionate. . . . One of the most memorable teenage protagonists in recent fiction.” —The Washington Post
 
“A compelling tale of loss, resilience, and transformation.” —The Boston Globe, “Pick of the Week”
 
“Heartbreaking. . . . This is an adult novel . . . but readers of any age who love John Green’s novels might find [Emily]’s story, sobering as it is, an awesome one.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
 
"Stirring, sensitive. . . . One of the most authentic and distinctive voices since Emma Donoghue's [Room].” —San Francisco Chronicle
 
  “I have a new favorite Chris Bohjalian novel.  Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is a book I wish I'd been smart enough to write:  a masterpiece of narrative voice.” —Jodi Picoult
 
“A chilling and heartbreaking suspense novel.” —USA Today
 
“Enthralling and indelible.” —People
 
“Intelligent, rich in detail, filled with full-blooded characters…. Bohjalian at his finest.” —The Seattle Times
 
“A ‘must read’ book.” —St. Louis Post Dispatch
 
“Haunting and resonant.” —The Miami Herald

“Emily’s character is written so well and her story so absorbing (this is very much a read-in-one-or-two-sittings type of book) that it is easy to forget you’re actually reading . . . Close Your  Eyes, Hold Hands reminds us of our innate need for connection.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“A masterful storyteller . . . Bohjalian hits every note. His characters have depth, his story sings.” —The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA) 

 “Bohjalian delivers a thoroughly engrossing and poignant coming-of-age story set against a nightmarish backdrop as real as yesterday’s headlines from Fukushima and Chernobyl. And in Emily he's created a remarkable and complicated teenager . . . [with] a wry, honest voice as distinctive as Holden Caulfield's.”  —Associated Press
 
“Dazzling. . . .  A novel for the ages. . . . This is pure beauty in book form.” —The Free-Lance Star (Fredericksburg, VA)

“A potent story of loss, hope, and the overpowering yearning for home.”  —The Armenian Weekly
 
“Rings with poetry and truth.” —Library Journal

“A dystopian nightmare entwined with a wrenching personal crisis . . . The notion of ‘just a life I left’ grows more intense for somebody like Emily Shepard who can’t return and is unsure about how to go forward.” —Burlington Free Press
 
“[A] brave saga.” —Booklist
 
“Impressive. . . . [Emily’s] admiration for kindred spirit Emily Dickinson serves to humanize her plight, as does an epiphany in the book’s bittersweet conclusion.” —Publishers Weekly

“Bohjalian once again reveals an uncanny talent for crafting a young female protagonist who is fatally flawed, but nevertheless immensely likable. . . . Resonates with a message of hope, truth and the fragility of life.” —BookPage
 

“Emily’s voice is a compelling one… and hers is a journey readers will avidly follow.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher