Somewhat irrelevant aside
PBS is running a series titled "Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life."
It is about Pittsburgh's powerful community response to hate after a deadly attack at a synagogue. During the program, one of the speakers said that peace is not achieved through guns and violence but based upon the relationships individuals form when they know one another's stories.
How does that relate to this course?
Biography
Sulari Gentill is the author of the multi-award-winning Rowland Sinclair Mysteries, a series of (currently) ten historical crime novels set in 1930s Australia.
Her widely praised standalone novel, After She Wrote Him, won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel and was short-listed for the Davitt Award.
Most recently, she published the award-winning and USA Today bestselling The Woman in the Library.
Sulari lives in a small country town in the Australian Snowy Mountains where she grows French Black Truffles and writes. She remains in love with the art of storytelling.
Biography
I am still the person who owned the bio below, but it seems eight years passed when I wasn't looking. Rather than writing a whole new biography I thought I'd leave 2010 where it was, and update.
I still live on a Trufferie in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains. Indeed, that's Badger the truffle dog in this picture.
I now have 12 published novels under my belt with the 13th due for release in February 2019.
Biography
My work is published in print in Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada, and worldwide as audiobooks.
The little boys I mentioned in my 2010 bio are now strapping young men. It has been a wild and glorious eight years filled with the competing madness of both my real and imaginary worlds. I have met many extraordinary people, made some wonderful friends, earned a readership and, I hope, honed my craft.
I remain hopelessly in love with the art of writing.
She and husband, Michael, have two sons, Edmund and Atticus
Biography
I'm Australian. I was born in Sri Lanka, learned to speak English in Zambia and grew up in Brisbane. I went to University to study astrophysics, graduated in law and after years of corporate contracts, realized I just wanted to tell stories. Perhaps a legal career is a natural precursor to writing fiction.
Whilst I maintain that I am nowhere near old enough for a mid-life crisis, I did begin turning down legal positions two years ago, so that I could write. Since then, I have completed four independent novels and co-authored two others.
My first novel was short listed for the 2008 NSW Genre Fiction Award, and another placed in the 2008 FAW National Literary Awards (Jim Hamilton Award).
In 2009 I was long-listed in the QWC Hachette Livre Manuscript Development Program and offered a Varuna Fellowship. It was enough to keep me stubbornly refusing to do anything but write, though the bills were mounting and I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever be gainfully employed again.
Then, in a moment which I'll always remember as one of pure joy, hysterical giddy excitement and overwhelming relief, Pantera Press asked me to become one of their authors. And so here I am.
Biography
I live and write on a small farm in the Snowy Mountains of NSW, where I grow French Black Truffles, breed miniature cattle and raise two wild colonial boys. Most of my time is now happily devoted to researching and writing.
I like painting, dogs and ginger ice-cream. I could probably still draft you a contract . . . but you might find it has a plot . . . .and perhaps a twist or two.
Sulari is author of award-winning Rowland Sinclair Mysteries, a series of historical crime fiction novels set in the 1930s about the gentleman artist-cum-amateur-detective.
The first in the series, A Few Right Thinking Men was shortlisted for Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book.
A Decline in Prophets, the second in the series, won the Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Fiction.
Miles Off Course was released in early 2012, Paving the New Road was released in late 2012 and shortlisted for the Davitt Award for best crime fiction 2013.
Gentlemen Formerly Dressed was released in November 2013. All the Tears in China, released early in 2019.
Publications
Rowland Sinclair series
A Few Right Thinking Men (2010)
nominated for a 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize.
A Decline in Prophets (2011)
Won Davitt award
Miles Off Course (2012)
Paving the New Road (2012)
Gentlemen Formerly Dressed (2013)
A Murder Unmentioned: Rowland Sinclair (2014)
Give the Devil His Due (2015)
A Dangerous Language (2017)
All the Tears in China (2019)
A Testament of Character (2020)
Biography
Under the name S.D. Gentill, Sulari also writes a fantasy adventure series called The Hero Trilogy. All three books in the trilogy, Chasing Odysseus, Trying War and The Blood of Wolves are out now, and available in paperback, in a trilogy pack, and as eBooks.
Stand-alone novels
Crossing the Lines (2017) (aka After She Wrote Him, 2020)
won the 2018 Ned Kelly Award
The Woman in the Library (2022)
Cast of characters
Hannah Tigone—narrator (1st person narrator) and author of the murder mystery we're reading. One of her books is called The Implausible Country
Leo Johnson (Wil Saunders) is a fan, fellow aspiring writer, who corresponds with her and "critiques" chapters as she writes and sends them to him. He's in Boston; she's in Australia. As he lives in Boston, he continues to offer suggestions and changes, pointing out cultural differences between America and Australia, such as "sweater" instead of "jumper."
Cast of characters
Leo Johnson (Wil Saunders)
As this correspondence continues, he suggests changes to the plot and at one time refers to this book as "ours."
He also insists that Hannah incorporate the Covid pandemic in the story, and insists that her characters, all except Whit, are black.
He also sends Hannah photos of various murder scenes, taken before the police arrive
P. 132—letter to Hannah from Michael Smith of the FBI—she has contacted them about the photos Leo has sent of recent crime scenes and unsolved murders. The FBI has also notified the Australian Federal Police.
P. 133—letter from Peter Kent, Hannah's lawyer, about her cooperation with the FBI.
P. 237—second letter from Michael Smith, FBI, that Wil Saunders has entered Sydney and they will attempt to apprehend.
His final email comes from prison; he was captured and extradited back to Boston.
Cast of characters
Characters in Hannah's story:
Winifred Kincaid—Freddie, a creative writer working on a novel, from Australia, living in an upscale brownstone on Carrington Square, Boston, recipient of a Sinclair (fictional) scholarship
Gerry, Geraldine—Freddie's sister, who died on a school trip when a safety rail on a loose mountain lookout gave way. She tells Marigold the story because she knew instantly that the scream was Gerry's. Refers to Caroline's scream in the library.
Later she tells Cain the story, and remarks that she started to write after Gerry died, letters at first. As she writes now, she imagines she's writing to Gerry.
Later, when she goes on the trip with Leo and the two other Sinclair scholars, she writes:
I can almost believe Gerry’s standing beside me, seeing what I see, feeling the cold and tasting the faint salt in the air. I’ve felt her presence often since I came to the U.S.—it’s almost as if she gave me the story that won the Sinclair so she could see this through my eyes. I can hear her laughing at me, mocking the fanciful need to conjure her, to find meaning in luck and f
Cast of characters
Characters in Hannah's story:
Cain McLeod—"handsome man." Cain is his pen name, real name is Abel Manners. At 16, he killed his step-father, a cop, was tried, convicted, and sent to prison. Jean Metters, Whit's mother, was his attorney, but believed him guilty.
When released, he wrote Settling, a best selling novel that Freddie finds on Whit's bookshelf. She takes the copy, reads, and describes it as "clearly autobiographical in parts—a boy unjustly incarcerated who grows into a man within the prison system. The text is taut with barely repressed rage, which seethes onto the page, exploding occasionally in a scene of particular violence. When released, the protagonist, Caleb St. John, embarks on a quest for vengeance against those he holds responsible for the loss of his freedom."
At the end of the novel, when he's in the hospital, shot by Whit, he's reunited with his mother and uncle, Sarah and Bill Manners, who meet Freddie and Marigold.
Marigold Anastas—"Freud girl," a psychology student, very bright, tattooed, in love with Whit whom she has been "stalking." Very caring, protective of Freddie, but insecure, has a "thing" for donuts.
Cast of characters
Characters in Hannah's story:
Whit Metters—"heroic chin"
Also a writer, but for the Rag. Freddie sees an article he's written in investigative style on the use of steroids in college sports when she takes flowers to his mother who has her wait in Whit's pool house.
Partnered with Caroline Palfrey, investigative reporter for the Rag, on a plot to goad Cain back into a life of crime, for a story; they're competitive and attempt to "set up" Cain. He meets her at the library, "accidentally" kills her, hides her body, but Shaun has witnessed.
Leo Johnson—Freddie's neighbor, also a Sinclair scholar, enamored with Freddie, persistently offers her help. At the end of the novel, when Freddie and Marigold are in the hospital visiting Cain, but covered in blood, he arrives to help.
Caroline Palfrey—the murdered woman the foursome hears scream in the library, writer for the Rag, sometime girlfriend of Whit, who has an assortment of enamored female fans.
Cast of characters
Isaac Harmon, a homeless man, or one "sleeping rough," whom Cain met when he ran away from home at 15 and came to live on the streets around the BPL.
Isaac more or less "mentors" him about life on the streets; Cain says that Isaac "kept me out of real trouble and made sure I didn’t starve until I was ready to go home.”
Isaac is the subject matter of Cain's book, Settling, about a boy unjustly imprisoned who embarks on a quest for vengeance when released.
Isaac was also charged with murder, circumstances undefined
Boo, Shaun Jacobs, is another homeless man, friend of Isaac, who is mentally/emotionally unstable and attacks Cain when he and Freddie leave the restaurant after a movie.
Cain gives him money, has given him food, occasionally meets with him outside the library. Boo blames Cain for Isaac's death.
Boo had been a surgeon, was the inmate who stabbed Cain.
Joe—doorman
Cast of characters
Lauren Penfold—works for The Rag, as did Whit and Caroline Palfrey, knows Leo who introduces her to Freddie when she wants background on Caroline.
Justine Dwyer—the Boston PD detective who questions Freddie, and gives her background info on Cain. She's convinced he's guilty and offers Freddie protection.
Mrs. Weinbaum, and her sister-in-law Mrs. Jackson, are residents of the Carrington Square building in which Freddie lives. Both have a strong streak of curiosity
Later in the novel, when Cain has been attacked by Boo, and has a bloody laceration on his forehead, Mrs. Weinbaum visits Freddie's apartment and offers to suture Cain's cut, as Dr. Irma Weinbaum.
But she's not actually a doctor, it is a persona she assumes, as the lawyers who visit Cain and Freddie the next day, tell them. She has also passed herself off as a plumber. The two lawyers, Jarod Stills and Liam McKenny, represent the estate of her husband Dr. Elias Weinbaum; they ask Cain to sign a waiver for damages and suggest Dr. Lamarr as a legitimate practitioner Cain can see should he require "real" medical treatment.
Cast of characters
Alexandria Gainsborough—Freddie's literary agent, she introduces Leo who gives her his manuscript. She rejects it, later dies.
Video interviews
Australian Writers Centre
Reviewer—The Woman in the Library
The Woman in the Library is a story-within-a-story. The frame (top-level) narrative comprises emails from Leo Johnson, also known as Wil Saunders, to successful Australian mystery writer Hannah Tigone, who sends him chapter drafts of her latest work-in-progress. Leo sends Hannah feedback on whether she has gotten the diction right for her American characters and research on the Boston setting. Hannah originally planned to come to Boston, but Australian bushfires, catastrophic flooding, and the lockdown in Australia in response to the COVID pandemic prevent her from making the trip. The novel opens with Leo’s cheery celebration of Hannah’s latest book, his complaints about writer’s block as he sits in the Reading Room of the Boston Public Library and his eagerness to read drafts of her next work.
In the story-within-a-story, Hannah is writing about Winifred “Freddie” Kincaid, an Australian writer who wins a fellowship that allows her to do research and write her second novel. Freddie’s plans take an unexpected turn when she and three other people—writer Cain McLeod, brilliant psychology student Marigold Anastas, and bored law student Whit Metters—are drawn together by the scream of a woman.
Reviewer—The Woman in the Library
The scream bonds the four, with everyone but Whit assuming their encounter is chance. In truth, Whit is an investigative journalist who engineered the scream to create a connection between the four people. He plans to use their bond to investigate Cain McLeod, a writer whose sentence for killing his stepfather inspired Cain’s award-winning first novel.
Whit and his co-author Caroline Palfrey wanted to see if they could get Cain to crack under pressure by manipulating the group and Cain. Their goals are to see if a killer really can be reformed.
Caroline tries to cut Whit out of the story by taking his place in the library. He kills her and hides her body in the library the night before the scream. Everyone assumes the scream came from Caroline Palfrey and that Caroline died sometime shortly after the scream.
With these details in place, Hannah’s story-within-a-story becomes a classic whodunit in which the quest for the identity of the true killer drives the plot.
Plot summary
Freddie, Marigold, Cain, and Whit bond as they make their way through Boston eateries. Someone stabs Whit, an event that makes them realize they may be in danger because of their proximity to the murder in the library.
Freddie and Cain develop an affection for each other, and it becomes clear to Freddie that Marigold not only loves Whit, but she may be stalking him, hence her presence in the library.
When Freddie receives crank calls of the woman screaming in the library and of pictures to the doors to her apartment and Whit’s, she suspects she is a target. As she learns more about Marigold’s stalking of Whit and the true story of Cain’s early life, she begins to suspect that everyone in the group has secrets, and she is not sure whom to trust.
Plot summary
In the frame narrative, Leo grows impatient with the whodunit plot. He loves Marigold, especially as he realizes she was in the library because she stalks Whit, but he thinks Hannah should have more realistic detail about the crime.
He provides advice to Hannah about her use of Australian terms instead of American ones, but his advice is sometimes hit or miss.
His tone changes after an important agent rejects his work. He gleefully tells Hannah that the agent died under mysterious circumstances. He soon begins sending Hannah photos of crime scenes and people with wounds from attacks.
As the pandemic in the United States worsens, he begins to send gruesome photos that indicate he may be committing crimes himself.
Plot summary
In the story-within-a-story, Freddie learns the truth about Cain’s past, but she allows her attraction for him to overwhelm her reason. The mystery of who killed Caroline and Freddie’s growing entanglement with Cain, Marigold, and Whit are excellent inspiration for her writing. Her love for her friends and Cain prevents her from examining their actions critically.
She strikes up a friendship with Leo Johnson, another writer on fellowship. He pops up around her when least expected. They eat dinner at his place and share their works-in-progress. Leo is clearly attracted to Freddie, but he doesn’t push it when she doesn’t reciprocate.
In the frame narrative, the FBI follows up on a call Hannah made to them about Leo’s disturbing messages and photos. They tell her he is likely a serial killer and that she must end her correspondence with him. The next letter is one in which Hannah’s lawyer outlines a plan for Hannah to use her correspondence with Leo to help the police catch him. She assumes no legal responsibility for anything Leo may do as a result of the correspondence.
Plot summary
In the story-within-a-story, Boo, an unhoused man and a person with an addiction to drugs, demands money from Cain and later hits him over the head with a glass bottle. He also warns Freddie that Cain is dangerous.
Cain admits to Freddie that he knew Boo because Cain was a teen “runaway” in Boston. His new work is a novel about Isaac Harmon, an older man who taught him how to survive on the streets. Someone kills Boo, and Freddie begins to suspect Cain may be involved or responsible for the killing, but she doesn’t tell the police this.
More evidence that Marigold may be stalking Whit is evident. Whit, Marigold, and the police reveal that Cain has been dishonest about his past. They tell Freddie about his imprisonment for killing his stepfather. When Freddie confronts him, he tells her he was defending himself from his stepfather, a cruel man whose abuse culminating in an attempt to sexually assault Cain on the night Cain killed him. Freddie and Cain make love.
Plot summary
In the frame narrative, Leo is angry that Hannah includes romance in her draft. He encourages her to include murder, physical and sexual abuse of female characters, and gory details. He also insists that Hannah must include the pandemic as part of the setting for her novel. His anger increases when he begins to suspect that Cain or perhaps all the characters are Black. He is aware of protests in the United States over the killing of unarmed Black people in police custody and even the idea of unconscious bias, but he feels tricked by Hannah’s failure to include defined racial markers. Other readers will feel tricked as well, he insists.
He suggests she use hoodies to help readers realize Cain is Black and to include masks in her narrative. He wants Freddie to experience abuse for falling in love with Cain, for Marigold to get the relationship she wants with Whit, and for Marigold not to be the murderer. When Hannah refuses to do what he wants, he threatens to harm her. A letter from the FBI acknowledges Hannah’s reporting of the threat, but the agent warns Hannah that Leo slipped past immigration and is now in Sydney, where she lives. Leo manages to get to within a hands-breadth of her before the police capture him.
Plot summary
In the story-within-a-story, Cain and Freddie realize that Boo had doughnuts from a fancy shop on the day he died—a shop where Marigold bought doughnuts for Whit. They conclude Marigold is the one who stabbed Whit and may be Caroline Palfrey’s murderer as well since Caroline frequently pretended to be Whit’s girlfriend to help Whit avoid talking to abandoned lovers. When they arrive at Whit’s house to confront Marigold and save Whit from her, Whit shoots Cain and confesses that he was responsible for Caroline and Boo’s death. He tells them all about his plot to trap Cain.
In the frame narrative, Leo, despite being in prison, tells Hannah he is loyal and hopes to be reunited with her someday. He will be there for her if she needs him.
In the story-within-a-story, Cain survives surgery, and his and Freddie’s love for each other is cemented. Leo, Freddie’s writer friend, shows up out of nowhere to help Freddie and Marigold get past the reporters. He came in case Freddie needed help.
Questions for discussion
This novel has two Leo Johnsons—the one who lives down the hall from Freddie, persistently offers to help, has amorous intentions toward Freddie.
And then there's the Leo Johnson (Wil Saunders) who reviews the chapters of Hannah's story and offers suggestions that are increasingly disturbing.
He is the epistolary element in this novel. So, what function does he serve in the development of the plot?
NOTE—we never see Hannah's responses. So it's a one-way conversation.
Questions for discussion
If the Leo Johnson, or Wil Saunders element, were eliminated, and we read just the story written by Freddie, how would this novel be different?
Why is the novel structured as a story within a story?
Questions for discussion
There are lots of writers in this novel, some successful, some aspiring would-be novelists.
Freddie is writing the story we're reading, and has successfully published previous novels
Cain has written Settling, a one-time best seller recounting the aftermath of his imprisonment. He's apparently writing another, but we don't hear much about it.
Whit, Caroline Palfrey (murder victim) and Lauren Penfold are all journalists writing for the Rag. (by the way, that title would imply it is something other than mainstream journalism)
Both Leos have novels in progress, although we don't get specifics on those.
Why so many?
Questions for discussion
From Sisters in Crime:
There’s a discussion familiar to crime writers in The Woman in the Library. Australian recipient of the prestigious (fictional) Sinclair Scholarship, Winifred (“people call me Freddie”) Kincaid admits that she is a “pantser.” In other words, an author who flies “by the seat of their pants” when it comes to devising an intriguing plot.
In fact, Freddie thinks of herself as more of a bus driver when it comes to plotting: “there’s a route of sorts, but who hops on and who gets off is determined by the balance of habit and timing and random chance.”
The Handsome Man, Cain, to whom she is explaining her approach is also a writer, but a meticulous planner who has devised an intricate flowchart with radiating themes and subplots: “it’s like a spider’s web spun to catch a story,” Freddie reflects appreciatively.
Which one is Sulari Gentill? What's the difference between the two?
Questions for discussion
Freddie's sister Geraldine, or Gerry, is mentioned only a couple of times throughout the novel. She died on a school bus trip when she fell from an outlook post on a mountain because of a flimsy guard rail.
Freddie tells the story first to Marigold, as evidence that she knew the meaning of the scream they heard in the library.
She tells it the second time to Cain, and remarks that she started to write after Gerry died, letters at first. As she writes now, she imagines she's writing to Gerry.
Questions for discussion
Later, on the trip to Rockport with Leo and the two other Sinclair scholars, she writes:
There’s a special magic to the way snow settles on the sail lofts and fish shacks of Artists’ Row. Picture postcard and frozen in time. I am overwhelmed with a reminder that I am living in the U.S., writing, and I am amazed anew that this is my life.
I won the fellowship with a story about Geraldine, and the kind of destructive grief left in the wake of shock, the long road to rebuilding family without her, the inconsolable rage of my mother, the withdrawal of my father, my determination to find sense and purpose where there was none.
The resultant novella had been a kind of scream, pain and guilt and hope with a denouement of desperate and exhausted hope. That it had won the Sinclair had stunned me as much as anyone, . . .
So, the story of Gerry is a very small piece of this novel. Why is it included?
Breakout room question
What did you get out of reading this novel? Any insight you came away with?
Questions for discussion
The novel gradually uncovers the plot with increasing information about the past lives of its main characters, particularly Whit and Cain, but also Isaac and Boo, and both Leos. This is a gradual building of the full picture as elements from the past are revealed.
Conversation with the author
You also write the Rowland Sinclair mystery series. Does it feel significantly different to write a standalone project like this one as opposed to an ongoing series?
In some ways, writing a standalone novel is like writing the first book of a series. Anything could happen because you’re not building on a history established in previous books.
Every character’s past is a mystery to unearth. Each of them has to gain the reader’s interest, make the reader care, without the benefit of past adventures together having created a bond.
I suppose the big difference is that a standalone novel, as opposed to the first book of a series, requires you to say goodbye. You have to be able to finish with your characters, take them to a place where you are happy to walk away, and leave them to their own devices. For writers, at least, that can be tough.
By the time a novel is written, a writer has spent hundreds of hours with the characters of her book. . . . She has been through all manner of peril with them, so it’s hard to give them up. I expect there are a few unexpected sequels that exist for no other reason than the writer missed the characters too much to stay away.
Next week
The "Gilded Age." Edith Wharton
and historical background for Trust