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About The Book

In the tradition of Sue Monk Kidd and Julia Glass comes a stirring and soulful novel about an American woman accused of murdering her husband in Africa and the series of events that led her to that point, compellingly told via the alternating perspectives of her four teenage daughters.
Christina Meldrum has already won praise from critics and fans with her young adult novel Madapple, which was an ALA Best Book for Young Readers in 2009 and earned starred reviews across the board. Now, in Amaryllis in Blueberry, her first adult novel, she tells the gripping story of the seemingly ordinary Slepy family—who fled their Midwestern town to do missionary work in a small village Africa. Meldrum has been an aid worker in Africa, bringing an authenticity to this richly atmospheric novel which explores many universal themes including family, religion, and culture.
Meet Dick, his wife Seena, and their four daughters, each named Mary: Mary Catherine, Mary Grace, Mary Tessa, and their youngest Amaryllis (aMARYillis). Seena has felt unloved and unvalued most of her adult life, so she escapes into her books, particularly Greek mythology, to satisfy her desire to find meaning. Her life has been built on secrets and lies and she wants to protect her daughters from the truth she knows will destroy their happy home. Mary Catherine seems to be the strong, faithful one, who in deference to St. Catherine, cuts off all of her hair, but she’s also a lost soul who desperately needs love and attention. Mary Grace is the eldest and the most beautiful—the one who easily seduces but is also easily seduced, especially when she’s faced with an exotic and fascinating culture so unlike her own. Mary Tessa is the inquisitive one who claims to be the most reliable when it comes to the facts of her mother’s case, and then there’s Amaryllis, who was born with an extrasensory gift of seeing things other can’t see, of knowing when bad things are about to happen, and of telling when those who profess to know the truth are the biggest liars of them all….
Opening with the dramatic scene of Seena on trial for murdering her husband Dick, this engrossing and lyrical novel flashes back to the year before her family left for missionary work in Africa—and how the buried secrets of their past came back to haunt and heal them all.

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for Amaryllis in Blueberry includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Jenny Christina Meldrum. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

INTRODUCTION

In a West African village, Seena Slepy stands trial for the murder of her husband, Dick, a doctor who brought his family from their home in the United States to do humanitarian work. How Seena got to this crossroads, with her fate hanging in the balance, is told in a series of flashbacks. Richly atmospheric, Amaryllis in Blueberry is a stirring, soulful novel about the intricacies of human relationships and the haunting nature of secrecy.

 
TOPICS AND QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 

1. Amaryllis in Blueberry is told from the viewpoints of Seena, Dick, their four daughters, their neighbor Clara, and finally the priest Heimdall. How do the varied perspectives affect you as a reader? The final chapter is the only one told from Heimdall Amadi’s perspective. Why do you suppose the author chose to give him the last word?

2. Consider how truth and reality are portrayed in the novel. What besides individual perspective contributes to each character’s view of truth and reality?

3. What are your thoughts on the narrative structure of the novel, which begins with The End—Seena on trial for murder—and intertwines scenes from the past and present? How does knowing about Dick’s death at the beginning of the novel affect your perception of him throughout the book? How does it affect your view of the other characters, particularly Seena and Yllis? If the story had been told in a more linear fashion, do you think you would have felt differently about the story and/or the characters?

4. Consider the significance of storytelling and mythmaking in the novel. The author interweaves Greek mythology, African mythology, and Catholic doctrine into the story line of Amaryllis in Blueberry. How are these myths/faiths similar? What purpose do they serve? How does religion relate to storytelling and myth making in the novel?

5. The title refers to a Greek myth—the myth of Amaryllis, and Seena summarizes the myth on page 317. What parallels do you see between the myth of Amaryllis and Yllis’s story? In chapter two, Seena explains the myth of Pandora (pages 17–18). What parallels do you see between the myth of Pandora and the novel’s characters, story and structure?

6. Yllis is the only character who tells her story in past tense. Why do you think the author chose to give Yllis this unique perspective? Although Dick, Seena, the Marys, Clara, and Heimdall all tell their stories in the present tense, each looks back on past events. How do you think their present circumstances impact their memory of those past events? How does their memory of these events impact their sense of the present?

7. Discuss the role of religion in the novel. What drives Dick’s strong Catholic faith, including his affinity for the Virgin Mary? Mary Catherine says, “seeing God, believing in Jesus, is like believing in air” (page 53). How does Mary Catherine use religion to construct her identity? How does Dick? How do their experiences in Africa challenge their self-perceptions?

8. Compare the two different settings portrayed in the novel, Michigan and West Africa. For the various members of the Slepy family, how are their expectations of Africa different from the reality they encounter? How does each setting affect the way each character constructs his/her sense of identity and reality?

9. What role does names and naming play in the novel? Yllis in not a Mary. Tessa, Grace and Catie all share the name Mary. Seena does not use her given name, Christina—except when Dick insists on calling her Christina. Each of the girls receives a West African day name. Mawuli’s name has meaning. Addae’s name has meaning. Are the characters empowered by their names? Confined? Do any of the characters use naming either to empower or to disempower others?

10. “How can you live with someone for years . . . and see only your imagination reflected?” wonders Seena (page 3). Seena’s comment suggests she came to realize her perception of Dick was built on imagination— on myth. Was it? Seena claims she never loved Dick, but do you think she did? Does he love her? To what degree are Heimdall, Seena’s daughters and Clara also Seena’s “imagination reflected”? What role does imagination play in the formation, nourishment and/or undermining of the other relationships in the novel?

11. Is the “Day of the Snake” (page 86) a turning point in the life of each of the Slepys? Seena seems to think it may be, but is Seena’s perception of the announcement’s significance fueled by her own needs? Is this another moment when Seena sees only her “imagination reflected”? Do you think a single statement can have the power to irrevocably alter the course of people’s lives?

12. Obsession affects several of the characters in Amaryllis in Blueberry. Why is Dick obsessed with Seena? Why does Seena become “Seena the Stalker”? Is Mawuli merely a replacement for Mary Catherine’s lost obsession, her faith? How important is the theme of secrecy in the novel, and why?

13. What are Seena’s strengths and weaknesses as a mother? How does your perception of her as a mother affect your view of her as a person? How does each of her children see her? In what ways is Seena’s relationship with Yllis different from her relationship with her other daughters?

14. What are Dick’s strengths and weaknesses as a father? As a husband? As a human being?

15. What is the significance of Yllis being a synesthete? In a sense, her gift results in her “carrying the sins of the world,” given she is the recipient of others’ unspoken confessions. And in the end, it is she who sacrifices her innocence to save her mother. Do you think the author intended to make a parallel between Yllis and Father Amadi? Yllis and Christ? What other metaphors or symbolism do you detect in the novel?

16. “Grace isn’t the same. That Dipo meant something to her. Standing before all those people, stripped inside and out, she found something inside herself she forgot she had” (page 321). What reaction did you have to the Dipo ceremony? Do you think it has redeeming cultural value? Why do you think it is important to Grace? Does the Dipo ceremony make you reflect at all on our own cultural practices related to puberty and youth coming-of-age?

17. Why do you think Mary Catherine is drawn to Father Amadi? Why do you think she cuts herself and starves herself ? Is it merely a plea for attention, as Seena suggests at one point? Is it possible Mary Catherine knows more about the relationship between Father Amadi and Seena than she is able to admit?

18. Tessa’s family regards her as a “troublemaker,” and even Yllis says Tessa is “good at sick. And cruel” (page 15). Yet in many respects, Tessa is more sensitive to and affected by both the joys and sorrows of life in Africa than anyone else in her family. How is this seeming sensitivity consistent with her family’s perception of her? How it consistent with her perception of herself?

19. What role does Clara play in the novel? She is not part of the Slepy family, yet she still has a voice in the novel. Why?

20. Now that you know the novel’s ending—that Yllis killed Dick—what new insights does it give you into the story and the characters, particularly Yllis? Would your foreknowledge of this and other events—particularly the true circumstances of Yllis’s birth and Mary Catherine’s meeting with Father Amadi—have altered your perception of the events themselves? How do you think a second reading of this novel would affect you?

ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB

1. Visiting the slave castles along the West African coast has an emotional impact on some of the characters in Amaryllis in Blueberry. Further information about the slave castles can be found at http://www.lasentinel.net/African-Slave-Castles.html.

2. Synesthesia is a rare sensory condition that affects Yllis. Find out more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia.

3. Prepare a feast with recipes from The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent by Jessica B. Harris, or check out the selections at www.epicurious.com/recipesmenus/global/african/recipes.

 
A CONVERSATION WITH CHRISTINA MELDRUM 

Amaryllis in Blueberry takes place in Michigan and West Africa. What personal significance do these landscapes have for you? What appealed to you about using two such dramatically different locations in the novel?

I grew up in Michigan and continue to spend time there every summer. Although I no longer live in Michigan year-round, it will always be home to me at some level. Michigan represents family to me. It represents summers on the lake. It represents holidays. While the characters in Amaryllis in Blueberry are purely fictional, the Danish Landing is very real. My family has owned property on the Danish Landing for over a hundred years. Nearly all of my most poignant childhood memories take place on the Danish Landing. I remember my grandmother standing at the stove flipping blueberry pancakes. I remember exploring the Old Trail. The Danish Landing gave me my first campfire, my first sunburn, my first leech! To the degree any place on earth makes me feel grounded, the Danish Landing does. I imagine Yllis would find part of my soul on the Danish Landing.

And I imagine she’d find another part of my soul in West Africa. I worked for a short time in West Africa during my twenties, and I continue to have ties to West Africa through my nonprofit work. To the degree the Danish Landing is my place of peace, West Africa is my place of prodding. West Africa nudges me, with its energy and rituals, its colors and smells. As a twenty-something living in West Africa, I did not feel peaceful, but I sure felt alive. I did not feel grounded; I felt flung from Addae’s slingshot. And when I landed, I had a different perspective, one that was far more nuanced. I was drawn to writing about these two places because on the surface they are so very different, but beneath the surface of each, there’s another world. And these beneath-the-surface worlds are surprising—and surprisingly similar in many ways.

Why did you decide to begin the narrative with The End, rather than have the story unfold along a more linear time line?

I find perspective fascinating. What if we could begin at The End? Or what if we could take the knowledge of The End and revisit our lives? Would we see ourselves differently? Would we see our lives differently? Would we become different people altogether—are we merely the sum of our choices? Or are we who we are at our core, indelible at some level no matter our choices? Would Seena or Yllis, Tessa or Mary Catherine, Grace or Dick or Clara or Heimdall be the same person to the reader if I had started at the beginning and moved straight to the end? Or did each become a different person to the reader because the reader had foreknowledge of certain outcomes? Did the reader’s altered perspective change each character in some fundamental way? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I think the questions are worth asking, worth exploring.

Seena is fascinated by mythology, and even the novel’s title draws on a Greek myth. Is this a topic in which you had an interest prior to writing Amaryllis in Blueberry?

I’ve wondered—and continue to wonder—whether each of our lives is a story at some level: a myth we create. How is our sense of reality and identity influenced by our memory, by our perspective, by our reflection on past events? Seena was a person who struggled with her own life story, because it was a painful life story in many respects. Was she drawn to mythology because others’ stories were safer for her, more palatable to her? Perhaps, but how accurate was her perception of her own life? Was the love she shared with Dick a mere myth, as she came to believe? Was the love she shared with Heimdall a myth as well? Or was it her spinning of these experiences the myths-in-making? And what of Yllis? Her entire life’s story was built on myth: the myth of the blueberry field; the myth of Amaryllis. Yet Yllis was a person who saw beyond myth, whether she wanted to or not. No matter the myths people created for themselves—and of themselves—Yllis sensed feeling; she could see beyond people’s words. Still, truth ultimately evaded even Yllis. Was Yllis right, then, that truth is necessarily elusive, “that it can’t be contained in a jar”? Are myths essential to our understanding of ourselves and our world? Personally, I think they may be.

 “I am an emotional synesthete. For synesthetes like me, the world is a layer cake of emotion, and we are its consumers” (page 90), says Yllis. What prompted the idea to have a character in the story be a synesthete?

I remember being a little girl and wondering whether other people’s experience of color matched my own. How do I know, I wondered whether my blue is someone else’s red, someone else’s magenta? Perhaps my neighbor sees evergreens as ever-purple, meaning my sense of normal would be utterly abnormal to my purple-tree-seeing neighbor. How would we ever know? As I grew and learned more about the power of our brains to filter information perceived by our senses, I became increasingly interested in the impact of perspective on our understanding of truth, which led to my fascination with synesthesia. That said, Yllis was a character with a mind of her own from the get-go. I personally did not know about emotional synesthesia until meeting Yllis, truly. Emotional synesthesia is a form of synesthesia that does exist. But Yllis led me to it as I came to know her as a character—not the other way around.

The scenes where Mary Grace participates in the ritual of Dipo are intriguing, particularly the reactions of the American characters to something so unfamiliar. What more can you tell us about Dipo?

Dipo is a Krobo ceremony, although some form of Dipo exists in many ethnic groups in West Africa. It is a ceremonial rite of passage, ostensibly to prepare girls for the responsibilities of sexual maturity and eventual marriage. As a student of religion in college, I learned that similar rituals—rituals that celebrate young people’s passage into adulthood—exist in many cultures. Why? What is gained from such ceremonies? Is there an underbelly to such practices, a dark side? I included Dipo—and Grace’s participation in the ceremony—in Amaryllis in Blueberry, in part to consider these questions, but also in hopes Grace’s experience of Dipo might spur some thinking about our own culture as well. Grace’s family was troubled by Grace being “parade[d]…like merchandise.” But how do we as a culture express value for girls as they develop into women? How do we guide girls? What traditions and ceremonies celebrate and prepare young women—and young men—in our culture for sexual maturity and adulthood? What are the upsides of our own traditions—or lack thereof? What is our dark side?

I’ve wondered about these questions, in part because girls—and to a lesser extent boys—in our culture often seem to lose themselves at some level when they reach puberty. I certainly did. Is this because I was unprepared for this stage in my life? Is it because I suddenly felt less like a whole person, more like an object, as a result of the cultural messages I received? When Dick saw Grace in the Dipo ceremony, he noted she had a body that reminded him “of the girls in the girly magazines” and he was enraged his daughter was being displayed like “merchandise.” Yet he regarded his looking at the “girly magazines” as a “victimless act.” A ceremony like Dipo may seem troubling at first blush—and there are aspects of the ceremony that I continue to find troubling—but I think people tend to be particularly sensitive to and critical of such practices in part because they are foreign. Our own cultural practices may be equally troubling, but because they are familiar, we’re more accepting of them. I do believe there may be something for us to learn from rituals such as Dipo. Although certain subsets of our society do provide rites of passage to celebrate, honor and prepare youth for adulthood, on the whole the cultural messages teens in our society receive seem at best confusing.

The slave castles visited by the Slepy family on their journey in West Africa are a haunting aspect of the novel. Why did you choose to include them as a setting in the story?

There is a line in Amaryllis in Blueberry in which Yllis refers to “the painful, beautiful truths that hover about like gnats . . . so often we just swat them away.” To me, slavery is one of those painful truths we often swat away. It is part of West Africa’s past. It is part of our past. But slavery is not the past. Like Yllis would say: the slave souls live on; slavery lives on. Be they trokosi or victims of the sex trade or the drug trade or the disfigured girl on the cover of Time magazine who tried to escape her Taliban “owner,” girls and boys and women all over the world are enslaved every day. The slave castles are a reminder of that. They’re the gnats. They’re the decapitated rattler. Like Yllis would say: “[T]here is a painful sort of beauty in seeing things for what they really are.” In that regard, the slave castles are symbolic of a related issue: how was each character in Amaryllis in Blueberry enslaved at some level: by others’ perceptions, expectations and memories of him/her; by the character’s memories and self-perception; by others’ choices; or by the confines of his/her culture? How and to what degree is each of us similarly enslaved?

What was the most challenging aspect of writing Amaryllis in Blueberry? How was the experience different from that of your young adult novel, Madapple?

With both Madapple and Amaryllis in Blueberry, ideas spurred my writing at the outset, more than plot or character did. When I began Amaryllis in Blueberry, I was interested in exploring the way myth and perspective help shape humans’ sense of reality and identity. I wanted to embed my own story in a myth—the myth of Pandora—and allow that myth to help shape the reality and identities I created. At the same time, I wanted to tell my own story from many perspectives: past and present, first person and third person, eight characters, starting with the end, ending with a voice that until that point had had no voice. I was trying to do a lot with ideas and structure, and at first my characters seemed lost in those ideas and structure. It took my having a terrific editor and agent and some wonderful reader friends who directed me back to my characters. With their help, I really came to know my characters, but it was tough, because there were a lot of them. Unlike with Madapple, which I told mainly in first person from the perspective of one character, in Amaryllis in Blueberry I had to know all eight characters intimately. In order to do this, I realized I needed to write them all in first person, then shift their voices (all but Yllis) back to third person. This was time-consuming and challenging, but it helped tremendously.

Amaryllis in Blueberry and Madapple both have a character that is put on trial. Did your background as an attorney come into play in deciding to include these scenes? How is Seena’s trial most different from one that would take place in the U.S.?

I am interested in justice: What is it? How do we decide? Is justice independent of culture? Or is there some fundamental form of justice that exists irrespective of culture? The trials in both of my books were means by which I hoped to explore these questions. Seena’s trial in Africa was dramatically different from the trial in Madapple, where Aslaug was said to be “innocent until proven guilty.” And yet, was it really that different? Of course, in some fundamental respects the trials were night and day. As Seena said, Okomfo and Queen Mother were her “accusers, judge and jury.” But as the trial in Madapple suggests, our system of litigation, with its lawyers, judges and juries, does not necessarily arrive at truth in the end—any more than did Okomfo and Queen Mother. Cultural assumptions and prejudices played a role in both trials. Hence, the question: particularly with regard to the rights of any subset of society, be it women or the disabled or a particular ethnic group, should cultural norms be relevant to determinations of what is just and unjust? The more time I spent thinking about these issues, the less obvious the answers became to me. Hence, I stopped practicing law. And started writing.

Did you intend from the start to have religion be a key theme in the novel, or is it an aspect of the story line that developed during the writing process?

I see religion less as a theme in Amaryllis in Blueberry, more as a vehicle by which I explored other themes, particularly truth and the corresponding power of perspective. Similar to the role of Greek mythology and African mythology—and mythmaking in general—religion was a means by which certain characters in the novel made sense of their world and of themselves. Because of this, religion provided an avenue to explore other themes in the novel, including justice, contrition, and obsession. In these respects, I did intend from the outset to have religion play a key role.

Against Seena’s wishes, Dick insists on calling her by her given name, Christina. Is it a coincidence that you share a name with one of the characters in the story? Do you have a nickname?

I’ve often wondered about the power of names and naming: Can we be confined by the names we are given? Or do names have the power to empower? Names are extremely important in West Africa. Every child is named according to the day of his or her birth. And people often have additional names with meaning, as did both Mawuli and Addae. How powerful are these names in shaping each person? Comparatively, how powerful was Yllis’s name, and the Marys’ names and Seena’s name in shaping each of them? Yllis is not a Mary. How did that affect the way she viewed herself ? How did being a Mary affect Grace, Catie, and Tessa? Seena talks about her name as a gift given to her by her mother, yet the loss of her mother was a yoke around Seena’s neck her entire life—like the pearls. Did Seena’s name empower or disempower her? When Dick insists on calling Seena “Christina,” what might be his intention, subconsciously or consciously? To control Seena? To own her? To give her “Christ within,” make her into a religious person? To the degree names are important in the story, it is for these reasons, not because I share a name with one of the characters. That said, I did grow up with a nickname (not Seena!), as did most everyone in my family. And perhaps that nicknaming spurred my interest in the power of names.

About The Author

Photograph by Lilac Chang Photography

Christina Meldrum received her Bachelor of Arts in religious studies and political science from the University of Michigan. After working in grassroots development in Africa, she earned her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She has worked for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, Switzerland, and as a litigator at the law firm of Shearman & Sterling. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family and is on the advisory board of Women of the World Investments.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Gallery Books (February 8, 2011)
  • Length: 384 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781439195369

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Raves and Reviews

“A gripping and satisfying read. First you'll race to the end, then you'll tell everyone you know to read it--partly for their benefit, partly so you'll be able to talk about it with someone.” --Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay It Forward, Becoming Chloe, Jumpstart the World

"Intoxicating... [Meldrum's] combination of coming-of-age and culture clash narratives has a seductive intensity." -- Publisher's Weekly

"With Amaryllis in Blueberry, Christina Meldrum has woven a beautifully layered, intensely emotional story, with unforgettable characters whose voices will remain with you long after their secrets have been revealed." --Michelle Richmond, author of the New York Times and international bestseller The Year of Fog

"Christina Meldrum pierces the facade of a middle American family, exposing the heart of each individual through the unflinching voices of the others. Her keen, distinct prose pulls you into a world both mystical and recognizable. A uniquely memorable read that will stay with you long after you turn the last page." -- Carol Cassella, national bestselling author of Oxygen and Healer

“Meldrum keeps the reader wanting to know more about the family through carefully intertwined story lines . . . Readers will compare this work to Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible—and that is OK. It involves a different family in a different set of circumstances but with the same satisfying result.” – Library Journal

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