Introduction

"With a piquant blend of magical realism and down-home pragmatism, Friddle's beguiling second novel is a poignant and reassuring tale of regret and redemption." --Booklist Emma Hanley plans to escape small town Palmetto, South Carolina, but instead finds herself juggling the needs of her adult children. Her once free-spirited daughter Dora turns to compulsive shopping and a controlling husband to forget her wayward past. Her son Bobby holds regular conversations with his brother Will-who died in Vietnam. When Dora's old flame Jake Cary returns to Palmetto with a broken heart and a gift for gardening, the town becomes filled with mysterious, potent flowers and memories long forgotten. Soon enough, Jake and his ragtag group of gardeners, the Blooming Idiots, begin to unearth secrets that have divided the Hanley family for decades. Written with the warmth of Lee Smith and the magical touch of Alice Hoffman, SECRET KEEPERS is a beguiling second novel by the acclaimed author of THE GARDEN ANGEL.

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Excerpt

Chapter one

The town had moved the Confederate Monument from the square to the gates of Springforth Cemetery some twenty years after the War of Northern Aggression, and General Robert E. Lee -- who stood atop the mossy marble with a scowl -- had never quite recovered. The general was listing, slowly sinking in the boggy soil, his finger pointing no longer at the ghostly Union brigade ahead, but just down and to the left, toward the new ldeal Laundry Factory, as if to demand extra starch. The stony glare of the good general was the last thing Emma Hanley’s grandfather saw, as he sat at his mahogany desk in his office, pondering a lost factory -- foreclosure by some outfit up North was imminent -- and an astonishing sweep of bad investments. As he swallowed the muzzle of a Colt .45, William McCann peered at the general, who seemed to look back at him approvingly, a kinship that comes from being beaten down by Yankees. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. SECRET KEEPERS includes descriptions of flowers that are real (tongue orchids, Amaranth) as well as imaginary (soul shines, secret keepers). Discuss the plants-both real and imaginary-and their effects on the characters and the town.
2. Consider how the epigraph by Katherine Mansfield expresses a major theme in the novel. [“How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you-you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences-little rags and shreds of your very life.” ] Emma feels stuck in her hometown of Palmetto-do other characters as well? Besides geographically, what are some other ways the characters feel “stuck”--in marriages, careers, illness, relationships?
3. Palmetto is the kind of town where the past is thinly veiled by new development and change, especially to several characters whose memories are triggered by certain places or landmarks. Consider these places and the characters' varying views of them: Amaranth Estate; McCann Square/Crossroads; Springforth Cemetery; the Confederate Monument; Emma's doctor's office; the Hanley's back yard and “barn.”
4. Discuss some reasons behind Emma and Dora's conflicted mother-daughter relationship. How has each responded differently to her own troubled marriage?
5. Bobby's intense love of science still muscles through his schizophrenia, just as Gordon's talent for gardening prevails despite his heavy drinking and painful memories of war. Discuss how both characters, outside of the mainstream of society, provide viewpoints that are skewed but insightful about the mysterious flowers and hidden garden. What do they see that the other characters don't?
6. Kyle, a rebellious, conniving teenager, is also a keen observer of his parents, his grandmother, his uncle, and Jake. How does he change in the course of the novel?
7. Emma's son, Will Hanley, died in Vietnam. Her grandfather, William McCann, died in a “firearm mishap.” Consider how both characters, though long dead and “off the pages” of the novel, still figure prominently in the daily lives of Emma, as well as several other characters.
8. Do you find Jake Cary, leader of the Blooming Idiots, a romantic big-hearted character or more feckless, naive businessman? Is he a sympathetic character? Why or why not?
9. Discuss how Dora's impulsive, addictive shopping exposes her underlying emotions and insecurities. Is she having a crisis in faith?
10. Consider the novel's ending, and how each character's life and situation changes. Which of the characters are taking their lives in totally new directions? Which situations aren't so tidy or decided? Consider what each character yearned for in the opening pages of the novel, and if-and how¬-those yearnings were met.
11. Identify some comic moments in SECRET KEEPERS. How do the humorous moments thread through the darker topics of grief, regret, illness, death, loneliness?
12. The quote that begins Part IV reads, in part: “The flower is a dying organ…a dying into being.” Do you believe there is a theme of spirituality in the novel? How does the serenity of nature-and the

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