The Excellent Lombards(70)

He turned in his office chair to face me. His eyes were bloodshot, I guess from the crying. He looked older than usual, circles etched under his eyes, the brown of them faded. His face was somewhat drawn. “I don’t know, Frankie.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

I stared at the floor. How could he have no idea?

“I want,” he began.

“What?”

He moistened his lips. He shut his eyes tightly, he opened them and looked hard at me. “I want to make hay.”

“Hay,” I repeated stupidly.

“I want to make hay,” he said again. “And the rain is coming.”

“The cloud is hanging over our heads?”

“But,” he said, nodding, “the rain doesn’t fall. It doesn’t fall yet.”

“Because we don’t have all the bales in.”

“Because—” He suddenly did a lightning spin in his chair. “It’s going to wait until we’re done.”

“Because Papa is there.”

“Yes,” William said. “Because Papa is there.”

We both looked at the floor. “Oh,” I said.

“Now would you please get out of here?” He abruptly turned back to his game.

“Okay,” I said. I went out into the hall. I was satisfied with his answer.

Maybe it was the best possible answer for the time being. I stood at the top of the stairs, very still, holding as still as I could. William, I knew, was capable of playing Posse until morning. It was well past the dinner hour but I could hear my parents at the table in the kitchen. I could see the light downstairs. By the smell of it they were having my mother’s famous pork-and-turnip stew and probably she’d whipped up mashed potatoes with buttermilk. Librarian by day, chef by night. I heard her laugh. “Jim, Jimmy, my God.” My father had been working all day out in the cold and afterward he’d had to go into the woods to find me. Probably he was holding a cup of tea in his enormous knuckly hands, telling her the story of the search. It occurred to me that I, too, could stay right where I was, holding on to the newel post, until morning. “How did it get so late?” I heard my father say. My mother replied as if it was a real question. “In the usual way,” she said. I thought I might stay on the top step, in the darkness, holding to the post, stay awhile longer, but I also knew that in just a minute I’d go downstairs.





Acknowledgments




Thank you to Libby Ester, Mrs. V, Elizabeth Weinstein, and the Wonder Women. My gratitude, also, to the Hedgebrook Foundation. Not least, thank you to Deb Futter and Amanda Urban.





Reading Group Guide

for

The Excellent Lombards

by

Jane Hamilton





Discussion Questions



The Lombards comprise a sprawling, complicated family, and the relationships among them are even more complex. How is the concept of family portrayed throughout the book?

What effect does making Frankie the narrator have on your perception of the plot?

One might describe Frankie as being both surprisingly mature and immature for her age. Why do you think this is? How else would you describe Frankie’s character? Use examples from the text to support your claims.

How does a rural setting lend itself to this sort of familial, community-based story? What role does the landscape, which Jane Hamilton describes vividly, play in the Lombards’ tale?

In many ways, this novel can be viewed as a coming-of-age story. What are some key moments in which Frankie “comes of age”?

The question of who will inherit the farm is one of the main conflicts in this book. Do you think that the matter of inheritance is emblematic of some other issue?

The relationship between Gloria and the Lombards is very complicated. What do you think prevents genuine feelings between the children and Gloria? Between Nellie and Gloria?

“We weren’t just bored with the world; we were bored with ourselves, or we were hardly in our selves anymore. It was hard to tell what was going on. Maybe, if we could remember one little trick about how we used to be, we could get there, get back, as if we ourselves were a country we’d left.” How does this quote relate to some of the book’s main themes?

Frankie often has incredibly strong feelings and opinions toward those around her. Analyze Frankie’s relationships with other key characters, such as William, her father, Amanda, and May Hill.

How does the bond between Frankie and her brother, William, evolve throughout this book?

How does Frankie view love? Does it change throughout the course of the book? If so, how?

What do you think makes the Lombards “excellent”?





A Conversation with Jane Hamilton





What was your initial conception of The Excellent Lombards? Has it changed much?

I wrote many versions of this novel. I have a friend who writes crime fiction. She is often understandably shocked at the inefficiency of my process. “You had another failure?” she once lovingly said to me, when I was explaining that yet another version of the novel hadn’t worked out. At the start I knew the situation of the orchard family but I kept superimposing ridiculous plots onto the basic structure. For instance, there were several versions involving a nun and the lesbians in the neighborhood. The nun drowns in the marsh. I read Catholicism for Dummies and went to Mass. That version was six hundred pages.