BKMT READING GUIDES
In Hovering Flight
by Joyce Hinnefeld
Paperback : 288 pages
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Introduction
At 34 years of age, Scarlet has come home for the passing of her famous mother, the bird artist Addie Kavanaugh. The year is 2002. Though Addie and her husband, the world-renowned ornithologist Tom Kavanaugh, have made their life in southeastern Pennsylvania, Addie has chosen to die at the home of her dearest friend, Cora. This is because their ramshackle cottage in Burnham, Pennsylvania, is filled with so much history and because, in the last ten years or so, even birdsong has seemed to make Addie angry, or sad, or both. These are the things that Scarlet needs to understand. Cora and Lou (the third woman in Addie's circle) will help Scarlet to see her mother in full. In addition, Scarlet carries her own secret into these foggy days-a secret for Addie, one that involves Cora, too. Joyce Hinnefeld's debut novel is rich in so many ways beyond the taut mother-daughter dynamic and the competition among even the closest of women. The natural world, an artist's vision, the intensity of long-lasting love, the flight of a bird's song and the sighting of an extinct-or perhaps illusory-samll creature all work to shape the plot of the novel. Even the prose seems filled with birdsong-at once raucous and transporting. In its structure and style, In Hovering Flight follows in the tradition of writers like Virginia Woolf, Harriet Doerr and Carol Shields: musical and dramatic, with myriad stories and voices. But the evocative language of this soaring novel is Hinnefeld's own.
Excerpt
This morning’s scene is a familiar one: Cora at the small table on the screened porch in back, glasses perched on her nose and paper spread in front of her, distractedly petting Lucy, her old collie, who’s flopped down at her feet. For as long as Scarlet can remember Cora has been gray, her hair cut sensibly short. She’s also always been pretty. The sweetness and openness in her face and in her wide blue eyes have always somehow invited Scarlet to bare her soul, to share her deepest hurts and most ridiculous longings with Cora—though Cora will never, under any circumstances, do the same. If Cora has ridiculous longings, Scarlet hasn’t heard about them; she knows for certain about the depth of Cora’s particular pain—but she never hears about this from Cora either. ...
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Discussion Questions
1. What was your immediate response to this novel? Is there anything in your personal experience or of anyone you know that is similar to what happens in the novel? If so, how did that affect your reading of the novel?2. How would you describe the tone and style of this novel?
3. One of the ongoing debates in modern and contemporary American literature, to some extent in all the arts, is whether Art is or is not, or should or should not be -- “political,” or “didactic.” What do you think this novel is saying about that debate? If you came to this novel with a strong position or opinion about the relationship between Art and Politics, how, if at all, did it affect your reading of this novel? Do you agree with Addie’s assessment of herself as an artist at the end of the book?
4. What themes do you find echoed in the titles of each of the novel’s parts? I – field notebooks; II – k-selected species; III – proximate and ultimate causes; IV – zugunruhe; V – hypotheticals.
5. What is your understanding of Haeckel’s Theory of Recapitulation – “Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny,” which Tom always prints up on the blackboard the first day of his class, Biology of the Birds. Why does he use this statement, despite its having been largely discredited? Can you connect its basic meaning to any elements of the novel, including its structure?
6. How would you describe the portrait of family life, marriage, and friendship as presented in this novel?
7. Birds: What about them, in this novel? How many and in what ways can you find that the author uses birds and bird song as symbols, or metaphors, in this novel, or to carry the narrative? Do you believe that Addie ever really saw the Cuvier’s Kinglet? What is it symbolic of, if anything, to you?
8. How did or did not the inclusion of the events of 9/11 affect your reading of the novel?
9. The author says her favorite character is Tom. Which is yours, and why? With respect to Addie, does your opinion of her change over the course of the novel?
10. Whose story is it, do you think?
Notes From the Author to the Bookclub
One of the cardinal rules every teacher of fiction writing is supposed to instill in their students is the idea that a good work of fiction never emerges from a theme or themes. As a teacher of fiction writing, I don’t really stress this as a cardinal rule, though I talk about the risks of trying to make a point or teach a lesson in fiction. In my own writing, I’m more comfortable with themes that emerge as I’m writing, like a photograph coming slowly into focus, like a piece of buried treasure emerging from underwater. Certainly that was the case with In Hovering Flight. I did not set out to write an environmentalist novel, or even a novel about mothers and daughters or friendships among women. I simply had a few characters in mind—a young woman with romantic troubles (who became Scarlet), a lover of birds (who became Addie), a friend of the lover of birds (who became Cora). The themes emerged later, organically, once these characters showed up on the page and started talking to each other, and remembering. Better, and more fun, than talking about my own understanding of themes in In Hovering Flight has been hearing from readers about the themes they’ve found in the book. And probably the most fun I’ve had with this has happened on the occasions when I’ve gone to speak with members of book groups who’ve read In Hovering Flight. It’s been such a pleasure to sit back at these gatherings and just listen to these people talk and yes, argue, about their understanding of the book, its themes, its characters’ strengths and weaknesses. I’ve been amazed by these readers’ insights. I’ve learned a great deal from them, from mothers and daughters, attorneys, therapists, birdwatchers—and from a particularly vocal group of nurses at a big hospital here in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. Connecting with you, the readers of my novel, has been a real joy over the year since In Hovering Flight was published. Now, with the release of the book in paperback, I’m ready—and eager—to hear from more of you.Book Club Recommendations
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