GUESTS ON EARTH BOOK DISCUSSION

It's pretty fitting that this ended up being the book we discussed on Mother's Day, considering that one of the recurring themes in the book was motherhood in some form or fashion.  Evalina's relationship with her mother, who was a "lady of the night,"  Evalina's loss of her own child, Dixie giving up her child for adoption, Ms. Fitzgerald's distant relationship with her daughter, and so on. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The premise of GUESTS ON EARTH is that the narrator, Evalina, will tell the reader about a fire that occurred at Highlands Hospital, a psychiatric facility, taking the lives of several female patients, including Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Thus, this is a fictional novel that grew around a real event.

As always, it was interesting to read a book with a local setting.  While the premise of the book is the fire, the content is focused on the tragic life of the narrator.  Evalina came to Highland Hospital after her mother killed herself after Evalina's baby brother died.  And that, in a nutshell, sets the stage for the "tone" of the book.  This is a story with quite a body count.  While Highland Hospital is a psychiatric facility, most of its residents, at least as described, seemed not to have mental illnesses as much as tragic circumstances with which they were struggling to cope.  Evalina managed to have a fairly normal childhood, under the circumstances, and the hospital proved to be a nurturing place where she developed healthy relationships (including her first crush - who goes on to kill himself). Evalina manages to get a music scholarship and goes off to college, where she proceeds to make terrible choices.  She quits school, runs off with an opera singer who cheats on her and knocks her up, then leaves him to live with carnies until she has the baby - who dies.  Evalina returns to Highland Hospital after this tragic course of events, where she makes new friends and proceeds to make more terrible choices.  She turns down the opportunity to join her childhood friend's wildly successful band and turns down a marriage proposal from a doctor and genuinely kind and good man for a man who was a feral child and who is apparently banging every girl at the hospital.  After the fire that the whole book is about, Evalina returns to her birthplace in New Orleans where she finds a basement lair to wait for the feral man.

If you think the above summary is harsh and depressing, read the book.  I'm pretty sure I left out over half of the deaths and some of the more depressing parts.  One of the more disturbing aspects of the book was the discussion of the methods for treating mental illnesses at that time, including insulin shock therapy, lobotomies, electroshock therapy, etc.   

All that being said, the author, Lee Smith, did a great job of making the characters realistic and sympathetic.  I, for one, thought her portrayals of southern Appalachian people was much more three dimensional and accurate than a writer who shall not be named.  (This was probably because Ms. Smith is from Grundy, Virginia, and knows that we aren't all rednecks and hillbillies.  Take notes, Mr. Grisham.  Oops, I named the writer!)  The writing was compelling to read, but as Baron pointed out, there wasn't much of a plot.  It just kind of followed the narrator from horrible life choice to horrible life choice.  Also, there were a couple of loose ends - Evalina's relationship with Ms. Carroll, the owner and operator of the hospital's wife who taught Evalina piano; Jinx, a character I didn't include in the summary above, who disappeared without explanation after the fire and who some believed to have shot a man (there's another for the body count) and was suspected of starting the fire.  

There were a couple of other interesting points that we discussed in our meeting.  First, there was the implication in the book that F. Scott Fitzgerald stole Zelda's work.  Brave JB said he has read some of her work and it was a very difficult read.  Second, I'm not quite sure who pointed this out, but it was noted that the title was a very fitting description of people who struggle with mental illness.  

Personally, while I would not choose to read this book again, I thought it made for great book club discussion.  I'll close with a quote from the book that was highlighted by both Baron and Cat (great minds think alike!) and really summarizes the book well: "Why do we do the things we should not, and not do the things we should?"   Yes, why Evalina?  WHY?