Pulitzer Book Club Inclusion Guide
"Years of Grace"
by Margaret Barnes
INCLUSION MILESTONES
1931
• Teenage girl Jackie Mitchell strikes out Ruth & Gehrig
• Al Capone sentenced for tax evasion
• Frozen veggies available
AUTHOR INSPIRATIONS
Barnes was born in Chicago and lived there with her husband and three sons. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a B.A. in English and Philosophy when M. Carey Thomas was college president. Marion Park was Bryn Mawr’s president while Barnes, a strong advocate of higher education for women, was the college’s alumnae director. Barnes began writing -- plays and short stories -- while recovering from a serious automobile accident in France.
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– Share your key take-away about inclusion in this book in a sentence or two.
– Write a paragraph or two (up to 250 words) to describe your thoughts on exclusion/inclusion in the book, why you related or did not connect with the book, and why you think reading, inclusion and dialog about inclusion matter.
– Identify the name and website address of a cause you support with an inclusive mission.
Conservative woman’s life gets frustrating as 20th century mores change.
Parents forbid teenager to marry 19-year-old Catholic boy with foreign parents who plans to become a sculptor in Paris.
Life story of unremarkable woman.
A long 581 pages
Accept reality that you often don’t know how even the people closest to you feel or think, just as others don’t always get you or know what’s on your mind.
Hardcore gentille snobbery: debutants, dowagers, coming out parties, cotillions, custom hats, teas, yacht races, trips to Europe. Consequences of moral code: repression, frustration, unhappiness with trade-off sense of grace and righteousness. Culture of feminism, response to prohibition, war rock Victorian boat. Rejection of parental authority shifts. Expectation of pursing same lifestyle, career path, geography, and social network as parents, grandparents not next generation given.
Cook like your French first love. Serve eggs Benedictine with hollandaise sauce, a heaping pyramid of red beets, and green beans and cauliflower piled on crisp lettuce leaves with homemade dressing. Trim plates with Virginia creeper.
“Love’s the greatest safeguard in life against evil.”
Think clandestine, unchaperoned rendezvous at your BBF’s house. Parents do not approve of who you’re with or where you’re meeting. Do what you dare, and decide whether or not to talk about it. Alternatively, play it safe and meet in your mansion. Enter through the front hall with its tiger skin rug, then either meeting the drawing room with the gold furniture or the library with two grey parrots in a gilded cage.
What does a feminist with the courage of her convictions do in the novel? Today?
How did relationships with children change by generation in the novel? What has changed about parent/child relationships during your lifetime? Gain any new perspective on parenting from this novel?
What is the state of grace from religious and moral perspectives? What can grace mean today in terms of how you engage with others?
What can you talk about now that could not be discussed publicly in the novel? What can’t you talk about now with people other than your closest friends?
Compare lives of single, married, and divorced women now and in the novel.
Who in the novel was living a lie? A truly happy life?
What is the benefit/rationale for doing the right thing rather than pursing personal happiness.
What is the true test of age for a woman?
Compare chatter to silence as techniques for isolating and deflecting.
How should people treat 1) individuals they no longer love, 2) family members, friends, acquaintances, colleagues with different world views, 3) people who provide services for you?
Is it legit to feel ashamed of what someone else has done? Why/why not?
How did the wars and prohibition change the way people interacted?
If you don’t have three months and the fortitude for a summer in Gull Rocks with yachty in-laws, go to Chicago where the must-see is the Art Institute’s sculpture collection. Look for signs of yourself in Eve after the Fall (Rodin) and Diana (Saint-Gaudens). Do a house tour; see Richard H. Driehaus Museum and Jane Addams Hull-House. Buy a hat. Book-shop like a high-brow turn-of-the-century gal. Go to Oak Street Beach or a performance by the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, a puppet theater, or the symphony. Take overnight train to NYC and get cozy with your friend’s husband.
No film version of novel found.
Wisdom's Gate (1938) is novel’s sequel. Other novels are Westward Passage (1931), Within This Present (1933), and Edna His Wife (1935). Barnes also published a short story collection and wrote five plays, including the adaptation of the Age of Innocence which ran on Broadway.
Or read the notorious Camille by Alexandre Dumas.