Book Club Kit
gr © Ha rk i n s P h oto
Dear Reader,
aph
I’ve always been fascinated by fairy tales, how the stories they tell touch something deep within our subconscious. As a child, I devoured them. As an adult, I missed them, so I began writing my own, probing beneath the surface to see what the real story was. And what I found was this: Even the smallest magic comes at a cost. Often that price is built so deeply into the framework of the story that we don’t even notice it. Think Cinderella getting a fairy godmother only because her mother died, the Beast lonely for years in his castle, the Little Mermaid’s sacrifice not only of her voice and legs but also of her place within her family. There’s magic in real life, too, but, like fairy-tale magic, it’s bittersweet and complex. A baby’s first steps, for example, are a moment of joy and triumph, but also the beginning of their slow journey away from their parents. Childhood magic is always undercut with a current of loss, because it is a place we can’t stay, either as children or as parents. The question in Darling Girl became for me, how do we resolve our longing for that magic of childhood with what we know of the adult world? How do we reconcile the fantasy and the reality, the joy and the loss, that love brings? Peter Pan’s author J. M. Barrie knew a bit about this. His history is the frame that surrounds Darling Girl, although it’s not alluded to directly. Barrie was a child when his beloved older brother died in a skating accident. Barrie’s mother never recovered, and on at least one occasion Barrie dressed up in his dead brother’s clothes and entered her darkened room pretending to be him. Emotionally stunted forever after, Barrie refused to grow up. Flipping Peter from hero to villain seemed logical after I learned more about Barrie. The Peter in Darling Girl is dark—he does terrible things and he does them without regret—but he didn’t start off that way. He began as a vulnerable child who couldn’t get past his early trauma, much like Barrie. He’s both the gatekeeper to Neverland and the threat, the one who can save the Darlings and destroy them. I began writing Darling Girl thinking it was about Peter Pan, and it is. But at the time I began it, my oldest was entering her final years of high school, and my subconscious was clearly aware of how quickly time was passing. The grief Holly Darling feels at her daughter Eden’s rapid, unstoppable aging is the grief I imagine all parents feel on some level, as they watch the children they love grow up and away and into the world with all of its beauty and danger. That sadness is the cost, the price of admission to adulthood. It’s a price that Peter is unwilling to pay, and one that Holly does over and over again. Light and shadow, beauty and destruction, magic and chaos—Darling Girl is complicated, just like adult life. It has the dark notes that tap into our collective subconscious but also lush beauty, and I’ve tried to walk a tightrope between the two, so that neither side overpowers the other. I’ve tried to give the characters space to breathe as well, because to me the best stories, the ones we carry with us, are the ones we write in our imagination between the lines that are on the page. I hope Darling Girl allows you to do some imagining of your own. y
With gratitude, L I Z
DiscussionQuestions 1.
In Darling Girl, Liz Michalski revisits Peter Pan and probes beneath the surface of the fairy tale to see what the real story is. Were you surprised at the darkness that Liz seems to have found in this beloved children’s classic, or do you agree that there is something sinister about Peter, a boy who refuses to grow up?
2.
Holly is distraught by Eden’s strange affliction, her rapid aging causes her life to slip away too quickly before Holly’s very eyes. Do you think this anxiety is rooted in a natural part of parenthood, as parents watch the children they love grow up and away and into the world with all of its beauty and danger?
3.
In Darling Girl, though the story is utterly magical, we see very little of that magic on the page. Why do you think Liz made that choice? What is the effect on readers that we never get to see Neverland?
4.
Of all the familiar characters that Liz reimagined, from Peter to Wendy, Tinkerbell to Captain Hook, which did you think underwent the most significant transformation? Can you still see the classic versions of those characters in Liz’s darker iterations?
5.
One thing is clear: We readers and story-lovers get something out of revisiting classic tales again and again. Stories from our childhood reimagined in new, more adult ways are exciting, thought-provoking, and endlessly entertaining. Why do you think that is?
DiscussionQuestions continued 6.
Some of the themes that Michalski explores in Darling Girl include motherhood, sacrifice, confronting demons, the fear of growing up, and the idea that all magic must come with a cost. How do you think those themes relate to Peter Pan? How does Darling Girl make you think differently about J. M. Barrie’s classic tale, if at all?
7.
Darling Girl is just the latest in a long line of Peter Pan retellings across several mediums—books, plays, and films. Yet the original is a scant two hundred pages. What is it about this book, ostensibly for children, that has captured the public’s imagination for more than one hundred years?
8.
In the original Peter Pan, mothers are in the story but not central to it. How does telling the narrative of Peter Pan and Neverland from the Darling women’s perspectives change your feelings about the original story?
9.
Peter Pan’s fate is ambiguous at the end of the novel. What do you think happens to him?
10.
Many of the characters face difficult situations and hard decisions, which you may or may not agree with. Who did you find to be the most sympathetic character and why?