Book Cl u b K it
Discussion Questions 1.
The Editor is centered on a woman who looms larger than life in our history: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. How did the Jackie of the novel compare to your own imaginings of the former first lady?
2.
Ithaca, as both a place and a story, is a recurring idea in the novel. Do you think it takes on a particular meaning? If so, what is it?
3.
Imagine you had the opportunity to work closely with a major historical figure. Who would you pick?
4.
James has been a struggling writer for years. But his big break isn’t a happy one initially. How does it affect his relationships, with Daniel, with his family? What does his success do to his own sense of self and personal history?
5.
As his editor, Jackie pushes James to reconnect with his family in order to write a more authentic ending to his novel. How do you think realism and personal intimacy impact storytelling? Are endings that ring more true ultimately more satisfying?
6.
In her own way, Jackie slowly reveals parts of her personal life to James over the course of their relationship. How does this change James’s perception of her?
7.
The book’s epigraph comes from the musical Camelot by Lerner and Loewe, and Jackie herself references Camelot in a later scene with James. President Kennedy was said to be attracted to the Arthurian legend, the idea that history is made by great heroes with moral clarity, and the idea of Camelot has become a shorthand for the Kennedys’ brief time in the White House. What acts of heroism does James see in both Jackie and his mother?
8.
Talk about the different endings James strives to achieve throughout the story: with the manuscript, with his father, with his biological father, with his mother. How are each of these connected? Do any of them lead to the others, and are they ever really achieved?
9.
What do you imagine happens next for James? For his mother? For Daniel?
10.
Like James, would you ever write a novel about your real life? How would you balance the autobiographical and the fictional? Would you ever feel comfortable sharing it with your family and friends?
In His Own Words by St even Row le y
F
ive years ago, and six months after the death of my dog Lily from a brain tumor, I sat down at my kitchen table and scribbled some memories of my dog. The meals we shared. The naps we took. The talks we had when no one else was listening. They formed the basis for a short story. Somehow an octopus entered the picture. The metaphor made sense to me; I wasn’t writing about a dog so much as I was writing about attachment, and how difficult it can be to let go. I kept working. The short story ballooned into a novel, Lily and the Octopus—an endeavor I thought would sit on a shelf. After all, I didn’t take on the project with dreams of publication, I was writing to soothe my grief after the loss of a friend. Thus, I made it as bluntly autobiographical as the book demanded. I held nothing back, disguised no ugly truth, about me or anyone else. In a publishing fairy tale I still can’t believe came true, the book was acquired in a headline-making deal. The novel became a bestseller and was translated into twenty languages. Hollywood came calling and a major motion picture is in the works. And every personal detail I’d written in the book, every secret, was available to anyone willing to plunk down the cash to read it. While on the whole it was overwhelmingly positive, the experience definitely affected my relationships. Sure, I’d changed the names to protect the innocent, but some identities are hard to disguise. (Mom comes to mind.) So a number of painful conversations with people I’d written about
© Matthew Allard
occurred. In the end, I was lucky; it was a novel, after all, and even if it wasn’t— most knew I had been through something profound, and had the right as a creative person to talk publicly about my truth.
She looked so normal, accessible, like any one of us who had ever lived in New York.
Although I’d emerged relatively unscathed, I inherently understood I had to write about the experience to fully understand it, and I knew almost immediately what my next novel would be. A writer armed with a candidly autobiographical novel watches as secrets are spilled and his life spins wildly out of control. That was the initial spark for The Editor. But how would this writer lose control? Who or what would be the catalyst? In this case, the events of real life were not enough. I needed to find my octopus. My thoughts turned to another project I had started and scrapped years before after seeing (of all things) a Project Runway challenge centered around Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. On the show, fashion designers were tasked with creating an outfit inspired by Mrs. Onassis from any stage in her momentous life. They were shown images of her wearing the Chanellike suits we picture her in as first lady, and in the more casual and loose-fitting clothes she wore while sailing on Onassis’s yacht in Greece. But I was transfixed by a simple paparazzi photo of her walking in Manhattan, her nose buried in some reading. She looked so normal, accessible, like any one of us who had ever lived in New York. I’d remembered she had a career in publishing, but I didn’t know the particulars. I became preoccupied researching her professional life, and was shocked to discover that her time as a working woman was perhaps the happiest in her life. The very things that so many of us find oppressive—office politics, fluorescent lighting, coffee in a Styrofoam cup—were the experiences
that somehow set her free. As fascinating as it was to me at the time, I wasn’t interested in writing a biography (there were several already about her time in publishing), and didn’t feel I had a story that suited her. It didn’t seem fair to use her just to attract attention; she had to fit naturally into the plot, and, more so, have a real narrative purpose. So I wondered, if Jacqueline Onassis was your editor, wouldn’t your book suddenly be a big deal? What if the book within a book was about the writer’s mother? What if the family was Irish Catholic? What if the family had grown up revering the Kennedys? What if Mrs. Onassis was not just this young man’s book editor, what if she was exerting some editorial purpose on his greater life? Now I was on to something. A young man caught between his own flawed mother and the image of America’s idealized mother. And that’s when The Editor took flight. While the book’s genesis came from a very specific set of circumstances that happened to me, The Editor is a novel. To eclipse its publishing setting, I wanted to explore universal themes about the minefields of speaking truth to and about those we love. Hopefully, it shines a light on the stories we tell the world about our families and our lives—and the funny, often perverse, sometimes wrenching truths that we unwittingly expose. The book is dedicated to my parents, who are not the parents portrayed in the book. It’s a love story between a mother and a son; in that regard, I was not bound by the truth of actual events—only the emotional truth that ran just beneath the surface. This time I don’t want there to be any confusion between fiction and real life.
A young man caught between his own f lawed mother and the image of America’s idealized mother.
The
Ja ck i e O n as s i s Dai qu i r i “I just don’t usually drink daiquiris.” “That’s because you don’t usually drink with me.”
I NGR E D I E NTS 2 fluid ounces of rum of your choosing 1 fluid ounce of lime juice 1/2 fluid ounce of simple syrup 1/2 fluid ounce of club soda Limes wedge (for garnish) Ice
D I R EC TI O NS Combine the rum, lime juice, simple syrup, club soda, and ice into a cocktail shaker. Cover and shake until the outside of the shaker has frosted. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with lime.