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In the Company of Angels: A Novel
by Thomas E. Kennedy

Published: 2010-03-16
Hardcover : 288 pages
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In a rehabilitation center for torture victims in Copenhagen, Thorkild Kristensen is trying to take his patient, Bernardo Greene, into the darkest corners of his memory. Nardo is a survivor of months of torture in a Chilean prison, brutally punished for no crime other than sharing ...
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Introduction

In a rehabilitation center for torture victims in Copenhagen, Thorkild Kristensen is trying to take his patient, Bernardo Greene, into the darkest corners of his memory. Nardo is a survivor of months of torture in a Chilean prison, brutally punished for no crime other than sharing political poetry with his students. One vision kept Nardo alive during his imprisonment: he was visited by two angels who promised him that he would see the light of day again. Nardo has seen no angels since that dark day—until he sets eyes upon Michela Ibsen, a Danish woman with radiant blue eyes who frequents the same café as Nardo.

Michela is pursued by demons of her own. Her elderly parents are ailing, still bickering from separate wings of the state-run nursing home. Her abusive marriage ended a few years ago, soon after her only daughter, just a teenager, committed suicide. Michela is determined never to suffer at the hands of another man—and yet she is romantically involved with Voss, an immature lover turned on by jealousy and intimations of violence. Michela comes to recognize her fear and pain within the eyes of a refugee. Michela is no angel, but as she gets to know Nardo she finds the possibility of healing and love within her heart.

Set amid Copenhagen’s summer lakes and dark bedrooms, In the Company of Angels reveals our human desire to connect, and the possibility to heal, by helping others.

Editorial Review

No editorial review at this time.

Excerpt

1. A car door slams

The first time Nardo saw the woman with eyes of blue light, he woke from

a dream in which the angels had forsaken him. He bolted from beneath

the covers and huddled in the corner of his bedroom. It was dark. He did

not know he was in a new land.

Through the window he could see stars trembling in the clear black

night. It might have been the sky over Valparaíso. He listened for the

sound of a car door slamming shut, footsteps on the wooden staircase . . .

But there was nothing. Just tires sizzling past on the roadway and two or

three young men talking loudly on the lake bank, staggering home from

a Saturday night serving house. No angels. No woman with eyes of light.

But he had seen her. Her gaze was cut into his mind.

Slowly he became aware of the sweat that soaked into the underwear

he’d slept in, that wet his scalp, his temples. And the pain, of course. In all

the usual places. Teeth, joints, head. Within.

But no one was coming up the stair. For here he was now. Far away.

Delivered. And that, anyhow, was something. = e angels had kept their

word.

He remained crouching there for a long while.

Even if you live to go out and tell this, Nardo, no one will believe you. Do you

think they will? No one will. No one outside of this room will ever believe the

things that happen here, and the more you try to tell of what happened, the

less they will believe. To make them believe, you will have to edit, to distill, to

tell only the tiniest little portion of it, and when you tell only the tiniest little

portion, why, then they will be inclined to think, after all, perhaps there was a

reason for this, perhaps the police sometimes need to employ certain means and

measures.

This was the frog-eyed one speaking, the worst of them, perhaps, one of the

worst. He spoke quietly, meditatively, pausing to pu4 on a cigar while Nardo

hung by one foot and one hand, and Frog-eyes pushed him, like a swing, holding tell you,” he said to the imaginary person Nardo was supposed to be informing

about this, “let me tell you what these animales did to me, listen!”—and then he

would reply, playing the role of the person Nardo was to have been telling, “Oh,

come now, you can’t mean this, surely you exaggerate. What do you take me for?

This is too bizarre, really . . .”

Then he interrupted himself. No, my swinging friend, he said, and gave

another push. Nardo could hear the cartilage that held arm to shoulder creak

and pop. No, it will be worse than that.  ey will not even say nothing. They

will seem to listen to you with the face of great sympathy and say nothing, but

in their little heads . . . He circled his forefinger at the side of his own skull. In

their little heads they will be thinking. This man is full of the shit. He is nuts.

That is what they will think of your tales, my swinging friend. No one likes the

little boy who tells tales out of class. And he removed the cigar from his lips and

smiled, and Nardo began to scream even before the glowing tip pressed against

his nipple. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Thomas E. Kennedy dedicates In the Company of Angels to “those who have endured what I can scarcely begin to imagine; and for those who will not be indifferent.” Does Kennedy succeed in portraying the unimaginable in his novel? Which characters in the novel are heroic for their refusal to “be indifferent” to torture?

2. The novel opens with Nardo waking from “a dream in which the angels had forsaken him” as he huddles in his bedroom in Copenhagen (3). Why does Nardo believe so ardently in angels? Have the angels “kept their word” (3), as he believes? Or is Nardo still in darkness when the novel opens? What journeys to safety still lie ahead for Nardo when we first meet him?

3. Thorkild Kristensen, Nardo’s psychiatrist, remarks, “The thought occurred to me that were I to look into Frog-eyes’ face, so to speak, were I to come to know him, the knowledge would sear me like acid” (5). What dangers does Thorkild face in treating Nardo? What consequences does he suffer from his interaction with Nardo, and how must he counsel himself as well as Nardo?

4. Why is Thorkild the narrator, the first-person “I,” of In the Company of Angels? How would the novel unfold differently if Nardo or Michela were “I” instead of Thorkild?

5. Discuss the origins of each main character’s name: Nardo, Michela, Voss, and Thorkild. What bonds of inheritance, nationality, and class does each name contain?

6. What are Nardo’s first impressions of Michela? How does Michela first see Nardo? What assumptions does each make about the other at first glance? What do their first impressions reveal about their future relationship?

7. Consider Voss and Michela’s experience at Voss’s work banquet, at which Michela dances with another man. How is this a turning point in their relationship? What discoveries does Voss make about sex, jealousy, and romance on that drunken night? How does that evening lead to the eventual end of Voss and Michela’s yearlong affair?

8. On his deathbed, Mikhail, Michela’s father, holds on to two items: a copy of Hamlet and a trapeze over his hospital bed. What is the significance of each item to him? How is he finally able to let go of these two objects and surrender to death?

9. Nardo gives Michela a piece of advice: “Do not be ashamed to say you do not know something. For a person to e-say ‘I do not know’ require wisdom” (189). How is this a valuable lesson for Michela? What does she discover she does know by admitting what she doesn’t know? How are Michela and Nardo able to learn from each other?

10. How is domestic violence portrayed in the novel? What anxieties are reawakened when Michela sees Voss’s violent side? What connection can be made between the two major types of violence in the novel, domestic violence and political torture?

11. In a breakthrough therapy session, Nardo remembers his lowest moment in prison. How did his torturers finally succeed in breaking Nardo? How is Thorkild able to bring Nardo into that dark place of memory, and how does he help bring Nardo out of it?

12. When Nardo first tells Michela about his past life in Chile, “He could tell it no other way than as the story of another man” (166). Why must Nardo distance himself from his own story at first? How is Michela eventually able to help Nardo find peace and connection in the present moment?

13. When Voss attempts to crash Mikhail’s funeral, Nardo takes Voss aside to “tell him a story, a strange story about a prison, about a moment’s escape into sunlight from a dark, filthy cell in the company of angels who promised him that one day he would be free” (270). How does Voss react to Nardo’s story? What hope does Nardo wish to show Voss? Is Voss likely able to move beyond his cycle of hurting others and himself? Why or why not?

14. The novel is composed of fifty-three short chapters. How does the chapter division shape the experience of reading In the Company of Angels? Which chapter titles are especially evocative of moments and emotions in the novel?

15. Is it possible to imagine In the Company of Angels set in a city other than Copenhagen? What seems particularly Danish about this novel, and what elements could be universal enough to take place in a different city?

16. The novel closes with Lise, Michela’s mother, singing “Grand . . . amour . . . ” from her wheelchair. Why does Lise get the last word of the novel? What love is she recalling from the past, and what love does she witness on this day of her husband’s funeral?

Notes From the Author to the Bookclub

About the Author:

Thomas E. Kennedy has written more than twenty books and won numerous awards, including the Eric Hoffer Award in 2007 for In the Company of Angels (Irish ed.), the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Prize for short stories, and the National Magazine Award in 2008.

Critical Praise:

“In the Company of Angels…is powerful and of the moment…. Kennedy writes clean, evocative prose, and an occasional note of humor leavens this dark novel. He is a writer to be reckoned with, and it's about time the reckoning got underway in the country of his birth.”–Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

“[A] wide-ranging and assured novel….The stories of torture that emerge…offer, in their horror and dignity, a quiet criticism of the characters with more prosaic problems.”—The New Yorker

“In the Company of Angels is a novel about grown-ups, people battered and dinged by life, painfully aware of their own responsibility, whose understanding of their past never stops evolving. It's the dignity of their adulthood — the elusive prize at stake in any midlife crisis — that makes them so admirable and, above all, so moving.” —Laura Miller, Salon.com

“It probably doesn’t reflect glowingly on American expat Kennedy’s native country that this watershed novel is the first to be published in the U.S. after a decade of acclaim abroad. Why it’s taken so long is anyone’s guess, as there’s plenty to admire in the serpentine unwinding of troubled protagonists adrift in contemporary Copenhagen.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This is the first volume of the series to be published in the U.S. If its stellar quality is any indication, the entire quartet promises to be an exceptional reading experience … This novel offers much more than just a beautiful writing style. Each character’s story is so undeniably interesting that the reader gains a sense of the wonder of disparate lives with unpredictable but intriguing connections.”—Brad Hooper, Booklist (starred review)

“Kennedy writes with unusual insight and compassion, depicting the best and the worst of the human experience. His work may be new to U.S. readers, but it merits greater attention, and we should look forward to seeing the other three books in his quartet published here. A great choice for readers of literary fiction.”—Library Journal

“Expatriate American author Kennedy finally gets the major U.S. release merited by his European reviews with this third volume of his Copenhagen Quartet … An artfully written story with a conscience.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[This novel] lacks nothing … Kennedy is a master craftsman.”—Books Ireland

“Tragic, wise, comic, profound … An epic of the human heart struggling for meaning and redemption.”—Literary Review

“A glorious novel by a modern master.”—Irish Edition

“Thomas E. Kennedy is an astonishment, and In the Company of Angels is as elegant as it is beautiful, as important as it is profound. A marvel of a read.”—Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“With generous and elegant prose, Kennedy takes us from the darkest, most violent regions of our collective behavior to our most exalted...A deeply stirring novel, suffused with intelligence, grace, and that rarest of qualities—wisdom.” —Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog

“A terrible, wonderful, horrible, truthful, heartbreaking, and heart-mending book. The word masterpiece should never be used lightly, but [In the Company of Angels] is exactly that, a masterpiece written by a master. How can anyone know so much about the human heart?”—Duff Brenna, author of The Book of Mamie, The Willow Man, Too Cool, The Altar of the Body, and The Holy Book of the Beard

“In the Company of Angels is both a riveting examination of the violence we’ve come to take for granted, and an unsentimental, morally complex love story. Thomas Kennedy tackles the darkest of subjects, but with searing precision and grace, and with such feeling for ordinary humanity, that this book is full of light. It’s the sort of novel that reminds me why novels are important.”—Rene Steinke, author of Holy Skirts

"Thomas E. Kennedy's In the Company of Angels is a beautiful love story, a testimony to the human spirit, an important message to our world of darkness that the spark of light cannot be extinguished.... The setting, the descriptions, the complex relationship between Michela and Voss, Michela's love for her parents, the professional dedication of Thorkild Kristensen... All of this, the many brilliantly interwoven plot lines, the composition of the chapters, contribute to making the book truly difficult to put down. And the writing is stunning.”—Susan Tiberghiehn, Founder and Director, Geneva Writers Conference; Author of One Year to a Writing Life and Looking for Gold

Suggested reading from the Publisher:

William Shakespeare, Hamlet; Amulya Malladi, The Sound of Language; Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits; Nathan Englander, The Ministry of Special Cases; Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog; Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses; Pamela Constable, A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet; Christian Jungersen, The Exception; Pablo Neruda, Selected Poems.

Suggested viewing from the Publisher:

Isabel Coixet (director), “The Secret Life of Words.”

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