NEWS OF OUR LOVED ONES

Abigail DeWitt is the author of three novels: Lili (WW Norton), Dogs (Lorimer Press), and News of Our Loved Ones. Her short fiction has appeared in Five Points, Witness, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Carolina Quarterly, and elsewhere. She has been cited in Best American Short Stories, nominated for a Pushcart, and has received grants and fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, the Tyrone Guthrie Center, the McColl Center for the Arts, and the Michener Society.

“Compelling…The experiences, perspectives, and secrets of a French family during the Nazi occupation and after World War II… The novel successfully portrays the indelible impact of the war on people who lived through it.”  — Kirkus Reviews

“Abigail DeWitt shows how one generation’s experience is transferred to the next generation. News of Our Loved Ones is a war story that studies the war with the help of the psychological scars its victims suffer from. It is absolutely mesmerizing.” — Washington Book Review, “Best Novels to Read This Fall”

“DeWitt is ambitious with her latest novel, told from several perspectives through time, ranging across France to America and back again. The lives of her characters intertwine in a widening maze of infidelity, loss and secrecy, as the war links generations together as much as it tears those bonds apart…DeWitt’s strengths lie in keen emotional observation and the portrayal of her characters’ inner turmoil. She poetically illuminates her characters’ lives, weaving in and out like a knitting needle through wool.”  — BookPage

“With masterful artistry, DeWitt weaves together the individual narratives of relations both during WWII and for decades afterward, creating a multilayered narrative of survival and redemption…Each story can stand on its own, but together they offer a powerful kaleidoscopic view of the many ways war takes its toll and the small moments of beauty it nevertheless contains.”  — Booklist

“In an age of novels where not much happens, DeWitt packs in enough narrative in a short space that would normally keep a multi-volume series running for years. News of Our Loved Ones ponders questions of love, loss, family and the long-reaching impact of war.”  — Wilmington Star News

“What makes this novel compelling is the compression of the story, the variety of points of view and the sheer elegance of DeWitt’s prose as she transforms her own family’s history—and world history along with it—into a powerful act of fiction…So deeply imagined are the characters and the settings that the reader…is completely overwhelmed by the beauty and the terror.” — Ms. Magazine

“An effective and affecting tale of wartime loss and the way that weight of sorrow is held through generations…DeWitt writes in spare prose and has a knack for lovely turns of phrase…Moving.”  — Publishers Weekly

“What a beautiful, haunting novel Abigail DeWitt gives us…These are stories of love and great loss, of memory, of scars, of the devastating force that is war…of how people and families endure, keep going and find new reasons to live…DeWitt writes beautifully, poetically, with great attention to detail that brings the scenes to life and makes the memories and emotions all the more poignant…a book to be savored.” — Greensboro News & Record

“News of Our Loved Ones is beautifully written work, that untangles the fabric of family, and follows each thread through time, to where meaning is forged from chaos.”  — Simon Van Booy, award-winning author of Father’s Day

“DeWitt’s beautiful and honest novel captures the full force of families spanning decades, wars, and oceans. Each character offers up shards of their existence until a radiant mosaic of deep longing, personal mythmaking, and remarkable endurance emerges. These characters brave the search for love, decency, and peace alongside the specter of loss. Yet the driving mystery here is not how sorrow hews us through time, but the resurgent heart’s ability to pass so much light from one generation to the next. This powerful book will imprint itself on readers.”  — Devin Murphy, national bestselling author of The Boat Runner

“Told in multiple voices and spanning generations, Abigail DeWitt’s News of Our Loved Ones is a novel of astounding beauty, empathy, and eloquence. ‘Most of the world will be too young to imagine that you ever really has a life,’ laments one character. But that is not the case: here is life. And here is a book that belongs on the shelf with Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française, Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, and all of our other great works of war and peace.” — Mark Powell, author of Small Treasons

“Abigail DeWitt’s News of Our Loved Ones is a story of old Europe, of a tumultuous time that shifted borders, loyalties, and family order. But it is also an enduring story of love, secrets, denial, and redemption. Each word she writes is imbued with beauty: what emerges is a delicate tableau of darkness and light; village dusks and impulsive chances. Above all, it’s a story of a strong woman, a free woman, and her fractured memories. If Simone de Beauvoir were alive today, she would write like this.”  — Janine Di Giovanni, author of The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria

“Lyrical and haunting.” — Lilith

Praise for Lili:
“Engrossing and ambitious…Lili’s life is a rich and complex subject.”  — New York Times Book Review

Praise for Dogs:
“A remarkable character….a beautifully written novel of secrets and desires.” — Ron Rash, author of The Risen and Serena

1. The novel begins with an epigraph from Tim O’Brien: “To go home, one must become a refugee.” What is a proper definition of home? How is this paradoxical idea relevant to the experiences of the many characters throughout the novel?

2. Sensitive, teenaged Yvonne, in the midst of her physical hunger and her longing for a boy on a bicycle, believes that “pleasure and fear [are]…alike.” In what ways is this true?

3. Growing up in wartime imparts a very real awareness that “we might die today.” How does this profound knowledge affect Yvonne and other characters? Is there a way such threat could be valuable?

4. At seven years old, Geneviève is punished for being frightened when a woman is hit by a car. Her mother scolds her: “Fear is a form of selfishness.” What does this mean? To what extent is it true or not? Does this change in a time of war?

5. What psychological and behavioral effects do the deprivation and losses of the war have on the different characters when they are young and as they grow up?

6. Tante Chouchotte teaches literature and characters like Marie-Claire always have “a stack of books shoved under one arm.” What is the importance of books and literature during the war? What is the role of storytelling in life? What might it mean that “salvation depends on the right story”?

7. In what ways are Mathilde and her son Marcel different? Why are they so compelling to Marie-Claire? What might Mathilde’s exclamation that being in a snowstorm is “like being in the mind of a madman” suggest about her?

8. When Marie-Claire hears rumors of the French resistance movement she feels “an electrified awareness of the world.” What might this mean? What is its value? In what other ways might someone achieve such awareness?

9. Later in her life, Marie-Claire comes to believe that “we never know how other people suffer.” In what ways is this true or not? What are the limits of empathy? How is intimacy and connection achieved despite such limited understanding of another?

10. Mathilde’s father blames Mathilde for his sexual aggression toward her, making her feel that her “looks [give] off a kind of poison.” Much later, Polly tries to silently communicate to a young girl being groped by her father on the beach. Is there any difference between the way Mathilde’s father treats her in the 1920s and the way the unnamed father on the beach treats his daughter in 1976?

11. In general, what does the novel suggest about French and American attitudes toward gender and sex over the course of the 20th century?

12. Even “The Jew & the German,” which is about two men, is told from a girl’s point of view. What is the effect of the author’s decision to tell a war story exclusively through the eyes of women and girls?

13. Posing as a gentile painter, Dr. André Naquet, hearing of the arrest of his brother by the Germans, chooses to paint a picture of a marigold rather than flee. Why might he have done this? What is the role of art—personally or culturally—during times of war or oppression?

14. Thinking back on his resistance efforts, Dr. Naquet wonders, “What good is a single munitions train and a few lost pamphlets?” How were these efforts valuable despite his belief that he “made no dent in [the] war”?

15. Haunted by her survival, “memory floats through [Françoise] like ash.” How is this an apt simile? What is the healthiest way to respond to memories of trauma? What are the costs or benefits of forgetting?

16. Playing the violin literally saves Geneviève’s life. What might the role of music be in a good, healthy life?

17. After a single generation, the children of war survivors cannot fathom the profound suffering their relatives experienced. In what ways is it possible or not to teach new generations about the horrors of war?

18. Polly learns early to tell lies. Why is this? How is it of value? What’s the difference between a lie and a fictional story?

19. Polly experiences a powerful “language of dislocation.” What is this?

20. Staying with her aunts in France, Polly is told “nothing since the war is worth crying over.” In what ways is this absolute approach to suffering harmful?

21. The novel ends with Geneviève and Rémy lying in bed. Geneviève thinks, “it’s enough to feel your old body in my arms, my old body in yours.” In what ways is this valuable to them both? What else might be helpful, perhaps necessary, to heal from the traumas of war?