BOOK CLUB KIT
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1.
What role does the novel’s setting in Alaska play in the story?
2. What similarities are there between Elisabeth’s personality as a child in 1921 and as an adult in 1941? 3.
Do you think it was right—or at least justifiable—for Elisabeth to bring Margaret to visit Alfred in the penitentiary?
4.
Before the truth of his “involvement” was revealed, what part did you think Alfred played in Jacqueline’s disappearance?
5.
How do the story’s flashback chapters complement the chapters set in 1941?
6. 7. 8.
Although this novel is set more than seventy-five years ago, are there present-day tensions and difficulties reflected in the story?
How did the early loss of her mother shape the person who Elisabeth is?
9. 10.
Can you comment on the way the story explores the relationship between parents and children?
What’s the source of the animosity between John and Elisabeth?
What do you take away from the ending of the story? Is it a happy ending?
A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H
R AY M O N D FLEISCHMANN What are the main themes of the novel? I’ve always been attracted to characters who do bad things for good reasons—or, at least, what they think are good reasons. I like writing about characters who are at once intelligent but reckless, thoughtful but neurotic, well-intentioned but misguided. Theme comes from character, and from the writer’s own subconscious, and although it’s always difficult to generalize what a story is “about,” I’d say that this novel explores themes of isolation, loneliness, displacement, paranoia, obsession, and grief. © MADELINE R. FLEISCHMANN
In How Quickly She Disappears, one of Elisabeth Pfautz’s few lifelines in Tanacross is her young daughter. Your own daughter was born between the first and second drafts of the novel; how did that impact the manuscript?
The first scene you wrote was one of a man lashed to a meat cache in Alaska. How did that image come to you? How did the story unfold from there?
Becoming a parent had a profound impact on my composition of this book, although I didn’t fully realize it until I had already written several drafts. In addition to the themes I mentioned before, this novel is certainly an exploration of parenthood and its many tensions. I think, too, that it’s an exploration of the intrinsic bond between parents and their children, and it’s an exploration of that bond being put to test. As a parent of now three daughters, there’s an almost nightmarish quality to certain chapters and circumstances in this book, and I think that my creation of those circumstances wouldn’t have been nearly as potent had I not been a parent.
With any story I’m writing, whether it’s a short story or a novel, I tend to imagine scenes for days or even weeks before I put a single word on the page. And that was how this novel began: I thought about it nonstop for days, but didn’t write at all. I thought about its characters and all their various motivations, which in turn made me think about potential scenes. And I knew that this scene in the meat cache would be the climax of the novel’s first section. It just had so much natural tension and intrigue to it, and even the setting itself felt evocative and interesting: the smell of cured meat; the light
slipping between the slats of the cache; this wide-eyed, dangerous man restrained to a chair. The scene felt so clear to me that the rest of the first section fell into place quite easily around it. From the first draft of the novel to the final draft, the first section of the book is the most unchanged, and I think that’s due in large part to the groundwork laid in that scene in the cache. Who was your favorite character to write? Who was your least favorite? I’m not sure that I had a least favorite character to write, as they all felt interesting and engaging in their own unique ways, but my favorite pair of characters to write was definitely Elisabeth and Alfred. They’re simultaneously enemies and allies, and that dynamic made for very natural, tense scenes. They’re playing a game of cat and mouse with each other—and they’re both aware of it—so there are layers to every line of dialogue that they exchange. What do you want readers to take away from the novel? I hope that my work strikes a chord with people in the same way that the novels of Flynn Berry and Ottessa Moshfegh have struck a chord with me: I hope that readers find my book to be exciting, interesting, and compulsively readable, while also finding it to be a thoughtful meditation on family, loneliness, grief, and obsession. I hope that my novel is fluid and entertaining, certainly, but as much as that I hope that readers find it to be emotionally rewarding and introspective.
O N S A L E JA N U A R Y 1 4 , 2 0 2 0
R AY M O N D F L E I S C H M A N N received his MFA from Ohio State University, and he’s earned scholarships and fellowships from Richard Hugo House, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and others. He lives in Indiana with his wife and three daughters. How Quickly She Disappears is his first novel. RAYMOND.FLEISCHMANN R _FLEISCHMANN RAYMONDFLEISCHMANN.COM
LIFE IN ALASKA W I T H A N I N T R O D U C T I O N F R O M R AY M O N D F L E I S C H M A N N
Between 1936 and 1941, my paternal grandparents lived in Tanacross, Alaska, having moved there from southeastern Pennsylvania to teach with the Office of Indian Affairs. I should say, however, that beyond these broad biographical details, the characters and personalities in my novel are entirely fictitious: My grandmother Betsy never had a twin sister, and my family never sparred with the murky motivations of any Germanborn bush pilot. In fact, my grandparents loved their time in Tanacross; my grandfather George was a wonderful storyteller, and his fond recollections of Tanacross are among my earliest
memories. So, point being, although the characters in this novel are fabricated, the setting certainly is not. Included below is a small collection of my family’s photographs from Tanacross, most of which were taken in 1939 and 1940. The information in the captions comes courtesy of my grandmother Betsy’s own annotations in the original photo album. It’s my honor to include these pictures here, presented in loving memory of my grandmother Betsy, my grandfather George, my aunt Marilyn, and all their bygone friends in Tanacross.
—RAYMOND FLEISCHMANN
MY GRANDMOTHER BETSY AND AUNT MARILYN RIDE A DOGSLED C ONSTRUCTED BY MY GRANDFATHER Note the construction of the home and Episcopalian church in the background.
MY AUNT MARILYN PICTURED IN HER YARD Note the meat cache in the background, and note the beaded moccasins that Marilyn is wearing. This photograph, in many ways, was a major inspiration for my novel: a thoughtful, reflective girl all alone in the midst of the Alaskan summer, early 1940s, watching the distance as if waiting for someone. Her clothing, the grass, the weather, and the background are all very much how I imagine the characters and setting of my novel.
TANACROSS VILLAGE A picture of the town itself, which again is very much how I imagine the setting, weather, homes, and isolation described in the first half of my novel.
BETSY AND MARILYN WITH PLANE In the winter, bush planes would attach skis to their landing equipment. Note the German writing on the side of the plane: “Wien Al[aska],� meaning Vienna Alaska, as the pilot was undoubtedly Austrian and quite proud of it.
BETSY WITH GREENHOUSE My grandparents helped build a greenhouse behind their home, which essentially functioned as an extended-season growing space for herbs and vegetables.
CHIEF JOHN HEALY Taken the day my grandparents left Alaska for their next teaching assignment in Shiprock, New Mexico. John Healey was the chief of this branch of the Tanacross Athabaskans, and a good friend of my family. Although he wasn’t the basis for the character of Mack, his clothing and appearance do make me think of Mack. The infant he’s holding is my father.
MARILYN AND DORA PAUL KUNTZ My aunt Marilyn and a family friend pictured outside of her home.
HEALY LAKE SCHOOL During my grandparent’s time in Tanacross, my grandfather would teach periodically in even more remote locations, particularly during the summer. Here is his class from the Healy Lake community, which would have been similar in size and age range to those of his classes in Tanacross.
OUTSIDE THE CACHE My grandmother and aunt sit outside one of the main meat caches in town.
GRANDMA ANNIE MOSES Note the sling with which Grandma Annie Moses is carrying the child, a ts’enîin tl’u˘ ul’, which in my novel is one of the many gifts that Mack Sanford’s family prepares for his funeral potlatch.
ANNIE MOSES, OLD BESSIE, CHIEF HENRY, AND OLD LAURA Four Athabaskan elders pictured here in the middle of winter. Note their beaded mittens, deshoz jeyh, and the mix of manufactured clothing and more traditional, handmade items.