Introduction

This edition includes a Reader's Guide with book club discussion questions. 2013 Readers’ Choice Award Nominee—BigAl’s Books & Pals From the author of "A Whisper to a Scream" comes a story about growing up, making peace with your past, and finding a little love along the way. In her first novel, Karen Wojcik Berner introduced book club members Sarah and Annie. Now, it’s time for another bibliophile to take center stage. Catherine Elbert has never been good at making decisions, whether it was choosing an ice cream flavor as a small child, or figuring out what she wanted to be when she grew up. The only thing Catherine knew for sure was there had to be more to life than being stuck on her family’s farm in Wisconsin.  While watching a PBS travel show, Catherine becomes entranced by Portland, Maine. The ocean. The lobsters. The rugged coast. Nothing could be more different from the flat, nondescript farmlands of Burkesville. Despite her parents threatening to disown her and her brothers taking bets on how many days until she comes home, Catherine settles on Peaks Island, off the coast of Portland. She was finally free.  Or so she thought. Unlike most series that follow one character through various adventures, each novel in the Bibliophiles series focuses on one or two members of a suburban classics book club, revealing their personal stories while the group explores tales spun by the masters.

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Excerpt

Chapter One

Burkesville, Wisconsin

1985

It takes a lot of effort to be ordinary-looking. Catherine performed the same morning routine the pretty girls did. The same shampoo, conditioner, blow dry, style, spray. The same moisturizer, concealer, foundation, blush, eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick. She checked herself out in the mirror. Ugh, still me.

Still a senior in high school who hesitated to use the term “farm girl” for fear of it being too cliche?d after her English teacher defined the term as “the lack of thought.” Clearly, nobody aspires to be a stereotype, but, really, is everyone that original?

Who hasn’t grown up knowing the bitchy cheerleader, a dumb jock, the computer nerd, an overbearing mother, a distant father, a misunderstood old person, or an alienated artist, writer, musician, or dancer? If everybody knows these people, are they really cliche?s or merely categories? Maybe the various cities, towns, neighborhoods, and blocks are really replicating microcosms? The same strands woven together to create one large tapestry of life?

Anyhow.

Still living in boring-as-shit Burkesville, Wisconsin. The entire town consisted of a bank, post office, drug store, gas station, church, two schools, and four taverns, all within a four-block area. Anyone could walk through it in about two seconds unless old Ben got a hold of you. Ben practically lived on the third-from-the-left bar stool at Pat’s Bar and Grill, Burkesville’s only real restaurant.

One day, Catherine and her friends were there for pizza and old Ben started blabbing to anyone who’d listen about how Bart Starr was the greatest quarterback who ever lived. Then this guy, Ernie, who usually goes to Padowski’s, but it was closed because the furnace broke, piped up with “Well, what about Dan Marino?”

Ben turned to Ernie like he was going to beat the shit out of him for even thinking of someone besides Starr, (a) because he’s a Miami Dolphin and (b) he’s not a Packer. Heaven forbid! Like there aren’t any other teams in the NFL. Catherine could not have cared less about the Packers. Who would wear green and yellow together anyway? Vomitosis.

***

“Ma! I hate sunny-side up.” There was something about the way the yolks jiggled, like teasing, googly eyes. Eat me, Catherine. Eat me.

“Everyone else likes them well enough.” Vintage Clara Elbert. Don’t deviate from what the men in the family want for breakfast. Eggs. Bacon. Homemade bread, toasted. Would it kill her to buy some fruit?

By nine o’clock on Saturday morning, her father had already put down fresh hay for the pigs and milked the cows. “Here ya go, Clara,” he said, placing a filled pitcher in front of her.

“Thanks, Hank. Boys, wash your hands.”

No matter how old the brothers were, Clara always referred to them as “the boys.” Of course, since they acted like little kids, maybe she was right. Catherine fiddled with her eggs, eventually covering the oozing yolks with bread. “So, Mr. Leary is nagging me about ‘my future plans.’ How am I supposed to know what I want to do with my life? I’m only seventeen.”

Clara scoffed.

Russell smirked. “Yeah, like you’re so good at makin’ decisions.”

“Remember Dairy Queen?” Laughing, Peter pulled his sleeve over his left wrist and ran it across his face. Ma shot him a pulverizing look. He grabbed his napkin and wiped his mouth properly.

“I mean, really, even if I do go to college, what am I supposed to major in?”

Hank glanced at his wife, then at the boys. “You could work with us here.”

How could she tell her family that staying on Elbert Farm was the only thing Catherine was certain she could never do?

***

With February looming, its contemptible blend of pink hearts and dateless nights, the only bright spot in Catherine Elbert’s endless gray winter days was the spring musical. Three years of paying dues were about to end. Seniors were guaranteed to get the leads. She was a dancer in Li’l Abner, a chorus member in Hello, Dolly!, and had two lines in Bye Bye Birdie. This year, she would be the one coming on stage last for curtain call, receiving a huge bouquet of roses, bowing her head in appropriate humility, and then rising to continuous applause.

The choir had begun rehearsing the Oklahoma! score two weeks ago in anticipation of tryouts. Anyone interested in solo work was welcome to book a time before school with Mr. Gusselman. So, every morning at seven thirty, Catherine began her day singing “Out of My Dreams” and ended it running lines with Beth, who would rather skydive than get up on stage. She was happy running the crew, safely tucked backstage.

At three o’clock on Tuesday, the usually dark auditorium had become a flurry of activity. Every few rows, seemingly schizophrenic teenagers mumbled lines to themselves. On stage, dancer hopefuls practiced a combination step. Mrs. White, the elderly organist from St. Agatha’s Church, was brought in as an accompanist, so Mr. Gusselman could focus on his directorial duties. He sat with student director Ted Swanson ten rows up, dead center.

“Denise Nelson. Please come to the stage. Denise Nelson. You’re up,” Ted yelled through a megaphone.

Catherine slipped into the seat next to Beth. “How’s it going so far?”

“Pretty good. Nobody as good as you yet, but Denise is up next.”

“Hey, Smellbert.” Bill Davies biffed her on the back of the head as he worked his way through the row behind.

“Cut it out, juvenile.”

Bill faked a “What did I do?” smirk that made Catherine flush.

“So, are you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Besides, my competition is pretty lame.” He sat back, kicking her seat as he crossed his legs.

Bill was right. Arrogant, but correct. The only other boy with a decent voice looked like he would be more likely to play “Curly” from The Three Stooges.

“So, Bethie. Do you think our little smellbag has a chance?”

“Absolutely. She’s gonna nail it.”

“Bill Davies to the stage. Bill Davies.”

Bill rose. “Break a leg, Smellbert.”

“Yeah, you too.” Her stomach churned with about fifty thousand butterflies.

“Catherine Elbert. Catherine Elbert to the stage.”

***

Now the waiting began. Clara told her daughter there was nothing she could do about it, so she might as well get on with things, but Catherine couldn’t help but wonder if it went well. Mr. Gusselman was smiling, but then he had started talking to Ted halfway through the song. What was that about?

Before she leaned her head against the window of Bus 79, Catherine checked for splattered bug remnants. Halfway between Burkesville High School and Elbert Farm was the only true Victorian house in or near the town, quite possibly in all of Muskegee County. It was built in 1892 by a gentleman from Milwaukee who supposedly made his money in beer. Probably one of the Pabst relatives. Sophomore year, her class toured the Milwaukee mansion on a field trip. Dumbass Mike Wurhauser kept asking the tour guide where all of the beer was, like the Pabst family had the brewery in their basement or something.

The Pabst mansion had a gorgeous, ornately carved staircase in the foyer, perfect for grand entrances. Catherine imagined herself, long skirt flowing as she descended, extending a gloved hand to greet guests. “Hello, Mr. Taylor. How wonderful to see you.” “My dear Mrs. Banks, you look beautiful this evening.”

The Gazette reported that the people who bought it were going to turn the Burkesville Victorian into a bed and breakfast. One time when the bus drove by, there was a little girl in a floral pinafore dress jumping rope on the front lawn. Her mother, clad in a denim jumper and straw hat, watched nearby as she trimmed away the overgrowth. Today, ladders and furniture were strewn about the lawn. A sofa, almost identical to the one Great-Grandma Gribbons had given Clara, sat on the front porch.

No one knew much about the family. One of the ladies who sat behind the Elberts in church had told Clara that the missus was wife number two and was way younger than the man. Hank had heard the guy had taken early retirement from a bank in Milwaukee to settle into a more peaceful life in the country. If “peaceful” was a synonym for “boring,” then maybe he got it right. Otherwise, he was delusional.

The newspaper also stated the bed and breakfast would be opening on Memorial Day, and that the owners “were hoping to draw boaters from Lake Sikapu in the summer and to capitalize on some of the Sleepy Hollow Fall Festival traffic,” which was a mile or so down Route 36. Catherine wished she lived in Sleepy Hollow, even if it wasn’t the real one. At least the name suggested a link to literary greatness, not like Burkesville, with absolutely no associations whatsoever.

Visitors flocked to Sleepy Hollow every weekend in October to view the fall colors, purchase corn stalks, hay bales, and Halloween costumes at Johansen’s Pumpkin Farm. If they were lucky, they might even catch a glimpse of Ichabod Crane out for a stroll or run into Katrina Von Tassel, both played by the Johansens themselves.

When the Elbert children were little, Hank made them pose for pictures next to the “How Tall This Fall?” wood cut-out of a scarecrow holding a measuring stick. The photo collection of little Catherine only went from barely standing at two to age seven, the year Peter hurled a pumpkin at Russell’s head for calling him a baby. Hank sped to the emergency room, where the doctor informed a distraught Clara that her eldest son had a concussion. Peter was banished to his room for one week, and that was the end of the Fall Festival excursions.

From then on, Halloween costume choices consisted of whatever was leftover from last year at the Quickie Mart, which turned itself into a lame “Halloween Spook-Quarters” every October. Clara Elbert was not about to drive all over Muskegee County for some outfit Catherine would wear only once.

Consequently, when she was eight, Catherine was a ballerina. Year nine, Sleeping Beauty, who really had the best gig of any fairy tale princess, slumbering away while the prince had to go fight that awful Maleficent and her dragon-and-thorn extravaganza. Best gig, worst costume. Cheap fabric and a plastic mask that damn near suffocated Catherine when she was trick-or-treating. Year ten, a godforsaken butterfly. By the time she was eleven, Catherine had had enough with the cheap crap and bought her own costume with leftover birthday money from Aunt Ida. She was Lizzie Borden.

The bus left her off at Blather’s Hill. Elbert Farm was about a mile up the road. Most days, Catherine enjoyed this solitary walk before the onslaught of parental questioning. It gave her time to process the day’s events, figure out what to tell Beth on the phone after dinner, and what to keep from her mother. She threw Clara a bone every once in a while to delay the incessant nagging about future plans. Like they ever had to make such a decision. Hank inherited the farm from Grandpa Elbert, and he and Clara got married a month after high school graduation.

Catherine stopped to breathe in the fresh, non-farm-animal air courtesy of the World’s Largest Christmas Trees, huge pines that divided their house from the soy bean field. When she was little, Catherine had asked her parents if they could decorate them for the holidays.

Russell laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“How stupid are you?” Peter added.

Hank cut in. “Cat, honey, it would be impossible to run electricity all the way over there.”

“Those trees were planted ages ago to block the farmhouse from the wind, not for your own personal decorating pleasure, missy.” Clara gave an exasperated sigh and left the room.

A faint clucking came from the chicken coop. Winter was a good time on the farm. The frigid air canceled out a lot of the animal smells. Next door, the pigs lay asleep, as they were apt to do in the late afternoon. Pigs are actually some of the cleanest animals on the farm. They change the straw for their beds every day and never poop where they sleep. Poor misunderstood creatures.

“It’s you and me, Penny.” Catherine petted the over-sized swine slumbering near the sty’s fence. Each Elbert, from as far back as anyone could remember, was either a farmer or a farmer’s wife. Even on the Gribbons’ side, Ma’s relatives. Didn’t any of them want to be a teacher? A banker? A truck driver? An artist? Butcher? Baker? Candlestick maker?

Clara left the large farming to Pop and the boys, but was totally in control when it came to cooking ingredients, which were grown in a small garden plot to the side of the house. There were vegetables and a few herbs, even an occasional flower or two—nothing fancy. One of Catherine’s chores was to weed the thing, cringing every time she donned those dumb denim overalls and gardening gloves so thick with mud that even industrial-strength detergent could not remove. Somehow, dirt always got through the gloves anyway and jammed under her fingernails. Gross.

“Cat, is that you?”

“Yeah. It’s booger-freezing cold out. Can we have some hot chocolate?”

“Watch your tongue. Don’t have time for hot chocolate. I’ve got these clothes to fix, and then I need to get dinner started.”

Why mending holes would take precedence over a nice, hot afternoon beverage she did not know, but then again there was little about her mother Catherine understood anyway. The sewing could have waited, but Clara Elbert operated on an internal time clock from which there would be no deviation.

The telephone rang.

“Hey, Miss Catherine.”

“Hey, can you hang on just a second? Ma, I’m going to take this in my room. Would you hang it up when I yell down?”

“Who is it?”

“Beth.”

“Didn’t you just see her less than an hour ago? I’ll tell you, frivolous time-waster, the telephone.”

“I got it.” Click. “Okay, my mom’s off. So how are things with our dear Fred?”

“Nonexistent.”

“But I thought you said the situation was heating up.”

“Only because we are chemistry lab partners.”

“Give it time. Pretty soon, he’ll be igniting your burner.”

“Stop it.” Beth giggled. “Oh, crap. My mother’s yelling for me. Call me after dinner.”

Hank had mercifully bought Catherine her own phone for her sixteenth birthday. Well, not really her own line, just a phone for her room, but she was the first one of her friends to have one. You would think it was 1946 instead of 1985. Beth was still stuck talking right in the middle of the kitchen where her entire family could hear every word.

She was pretty quiet about anything related to guys, but last week Beth let it slip she thought Fred Schmidt was cute. She would never ask him out or anything, so Catherine got him to build sets for the musical after overhearing Mr. Jones talking to Pop about Fred building bookcases for him. Beth was always the stage manager, so that would give them a chance to work together after school, romantic strains of Rodgers and Hammerstein music floating sweetly in the air—albeit blended with the buzz of circular saws—but maybe Fred liked that sort of thing. They would be dating by prom! view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. An overbearing mother and a distant father. What do you think of young Catherine's perception of her parents, Clara and Hank?

2. The seventeen-year-old Catherine describes her farm town as sanctimonious and "smug, full of hypocrisy and stupidity." Is she reacting as many teenagers normally would, growing up in a small town with "traditional values"? Or is there something different about Catherine's attitude?

3. Burkesville is a boring town with nothing to offer her except a life just like her mother's, thinks Catherine. What kind of future do Clara and Hank want for Catherine? What does Catherine envision for herself?

4. When Hank forbids Catherine to play the role of Ado Annie in the school play, Oklahoma!, what reasons does he give? Why does she think her parents treat her differently from her brothers?

5. Catherine's mother discusses college scholarships with her and tells her, "You're not good enough for a full ride." Catherine feels her mother is scornful of her. Do you think this is true? Does Catherine herself exhibit any scornful attitudes?

6. Are you surprised at her parents' reaction when Catherine decides to leave home for good? What has fueled her decision, and has she has made the right choice?

7. There is freedom, a job, and new friends in Maine for Catherine, a happy situation that does not last. How does her advice to her coworker Patsy destroy her friendship with her employer Katie McLellan? Do you think Catherine's advice to Patsy about Scott was genuine or fueled by self interest?

8. In San Diego, Catherine meets her new love interest, Will, at her workplace, the San Diego Zoo. How does this job help Catherine develop and grow?

9. Is Catherine right in being angry with Will for keeping secrets from her about his family? Is her reaction to Will's family reasonable? Are you sympathetic or not with her complaints?

10. Catherine returns to Burkesville for the first time to attend her father's funeral. Has her mother changed her attitude toward Catherine after all this time? Clara says that Catherine has always been ungrateful, even as a child. Do you agree or disagree with Clara's assessment of her daughter?

11. After her marriage and move to Naperville, Catherine begins to reconsider her life and to wonder what make her happy or unhappy. Does this self questioning lead to a gradual change in Catherine's attitudes and activities?

12. Catherine felt out of place both in the farm town of Burkesville and in the sophisticated surroundings of Will's home in Naperville. Why does she feel more at home in her area of Naperville?

13. How does Edwina Hipplewhite and the Classics Book Club influence Catherine's new life?

14. The title of the book is Until My Soul Gets It Right. Discuss what it may mean in terms of Catherine's story—her family in Burkesville, her estranged friends in Portland, Maine, and her current life in Naperville.

15. At the end of the book, to what degree has Catherine reached the goal suggested by the book's title?

Weblinks

»	Author Karen Berner's web site
»	Follow Karen Wojcik Berner on Facebook

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