Grave Endings (31 page)
A Reader's Guide for GRAVE ENDINGS
What do Madonna, Britney Spears, and I have in common? Not our singing careers, although as a teen I fantasized about being a Broadway star. And definitely not our wardrobes. I'm more PTA than MTV.
What we
do
share is a fascination with the kabbalistic red thread that allegedly protects against envy. Snipped from a skein that has been blessed after being wrapped seven times around Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, the thread is typically worn around the wrist, and has been made fashionable by Madonna and Britney and other celebrities.
I've heard stories about the thread's mystical powers. I tied one around the slats of the crib used by my six children. I tied segments around their wrists (and mine, and my husband's) at our sons' bar mitzvahs. Then, eight years ago, we had our
own
story. Minutes before our second son walked down the aisle, all of us in the wedding party tied red threads around our wrists. Somehow, my oldest son's fiancée wasn't aware that she'd lost hers. Immediately after the ceremony, she fell and sprained her ankle.
Was that coincidence? Or, in losing the thread, had she lost its protection?
I decided the red thread would make an interesting motif for a novel. And the more I read about the thread and its recent popularityâit's available on websites and, apparently, at your local TargetâI wondered whether people were buying spiritual protection . . . or spiritual snake oil.
I also wanted to explore Molly's excitement and uncertainty about her impending marriage to her rabbi fiancé; her guilt and anguish regarding her best friend Aggie's murder six years ago; her seesawing emotions when, two weeks before the wedding, she's confronted by evidence that the police believe finally leads to Aggie's killer; her determination, despite her family's concern, and her fiancé's, to find Aggie's killer.
Ultimately, I wanted to write a story that examines shades of guilt and innocence, and the healing power of redemption.
Discuss the title,
Grave Endings,
as it applies to the characters in the novel.
Molly is Orthodoxâshe is strict about keeping kosher and keeping the Sabbathâbut she has qualms about being a rabbi's wife. She isn't thrilled with the idea of covering her hair, which she will do for Zack, or lengthening her skirts and sleeves, which fall short of Orthodox rules of modesty. And she isn't always “modest” in expressing her opinions.
Do you see Molly as a rabbi's wifeâin terms of her temperament and her appearance? Do you feel that it is unrealistic for someone to take on a lifestyle that will be filled with daily challenges? Does “love conquer all”?
Do you think Molly's family and Zack have valid concerns about her preoccupation with the investigation into Aggie's murder? Could Molly have handled things better? Should she have postponed investigating the murder?
None of the major kabbalists wore red threads. Despite that fact, thousands of people today still wear the thread to ward off the malignant power of envy. Why do you think that's so? What are your views about the red thread? Is there danger in believing in its power or in other amulets?
One of the motifs of
Grave Endings
is our responsibility toward others. Are we our brothers' and sisters' keepers? And if so, to what extent? What happens when responsibility toward others conflicts with our own needs or desires? Our safety?
Discuss these concepts in relation to the characters in the novel, including Randy Creeley, Iris, Barbara Anik, William Bramer, Aggie, and Molly. Do you think Molly feels absolved of responsibility at the end of the novel, or does she still have lingering feelings of “What if”?
Do you think Roland Creeley erred in lying to his children and telling them their mother had died? Do you fault Alice Creeley for not telling her husband that his first wife had stopped by to observe the children? Are there times when withholding information is ultimately more important than sharing it? How do we decide?
We see Randy Creeley's mother through the eyes of various characters: her first husband, the woman who replaced her, her children, and Molly. How do they view her? How do
you
view her? Is she a sad woman who couldn't handle motherhood and fled from responsibility, or is she a self-absorbed narcissist who has rationalized her behavior? Do you think she loved her children? Do you think she is aggrieved by Randy's death? Does society offer viable choices for women who recognize that they have made a mistake in taking on motherhood?
Molly reflects that Aggie didn't confide in her about her plan to obtain the tape because she feared that Molly would have tried to stop her. Does Molly withhold information from others for the same reason? Is the concept of “not confiding” a convention of mysteries?
Who is the real Aggie? Do you think she was romantically attracted to Randy, or was that his perception? Do you think she broke off their friendship because she didn't want to hurt her parents?
Molly is shocked and hurt when she learns that Aggie didn't tell her everything. Do we have the right to expect our close friends to share everything with us? Are there boundaries to friendship?
Follow the trail of the red thread that Molly gave Aggie. In a sense, did it provide protection?
Do you fault Iris for not coming forth when Aggie was murdered? Can you understand why Randy didn't tell the police what he knew about Aggie's murder?
Anthony Horton is a self-made, resilient man who sincerely tried to help others. How do you reconcile the philanthropist who founded Rachel's Tent with the man who killed Randy Creeley? Do we sometimes justify our actions and look at the “greater” good?
How did your perception of and attitude toward Randy Creeley change throughout the book? Do his final actions redeem him? Are we judged by the totality of our lives or defined by certain acts?
Other characters in the book attempt to either rein-vent or redeem themselves. Are they successful?
Grave Endings
deals with the subject of what is predestinedâor “bashert,” as Bubbie G would say. At the same time it raises the concept of free will. Do you see a conflict between the two? Do you think a person's life is like a video, as Molly's father suggests?
If you enjoyed Rochelle Krich's
Grave Endings,
you won't want to miss
her new Molly Blume novel
NOW YOU SEE ME . . .
from Ballantine Books.
Please read on for an exciting preview . . .
ON A SUNDAY MORNING IN NOVEMBER, A DAY BEFORE the Monday Hadassah Bailor never came home, her alarm rang at five-fifty. She shut off the alarm within seconds, but her older sister, Aliza, who had returned late from a date, groaned,
C'mon, Dass,
even before she saw the clock radio's green liquid crystal numbers, eerily bright in the dark room. Like cat's eyes, Aliza would say, though that was probably an afterthought inspired by the Harry Potter novel lying on the nightstand between the two beds.
Aliza jammed a pillow over her head. Later, with some prodding, when insignificant details assumed urgency, she remembered hearing the splash of water as Hadassah, using the white plastic tub and two-handled laver that she'd kept at her bedside for most of her eighteen years, rinsed her hands and eyes before she murmured her waking prayers. Also with some prodding, Aliza was able to recall the hum of the computer and the staccato clicking of Hadassah's fingernails on the keyboard, and the muffled drone behind the closed door of the bathroom where Hadassah dried her long, curly strawberry-blond hair, which she liked to wear loose but had secured with a black velvet scrunchy.
At seven-forty Hadassah roused her three younger brothers. She helped Yonatan, the seven-year-old, find a tennis shoe and yarmulke, both wedged between the bunk bed and the wall. While they dressed, she put snacks into brown paper bags (she decorated Yonatan's with a smiley face), which she handed the boys as they tore out the side door to their waiting car pool.
Hadassah put on a buttery-yellow cable-knit hooded sweater and a gray wool skirt that revealed a few inches of slim legs encased in gray tights too warm for what promised to be an unseasonably mild day. After prayers and breakfast (two rice cakes, sliced red pepper, a glass of nonfat milk), she returned to her computer, muting the volume in deference to her sister's restless tossing. Two hours later she shut down the computer and went downstairs. She had slipped her black backpack, heavy with books, over her black quilted jacket and was hoisting the strap of her overnight bag, which, if anyone had checked, was packed with more than her school uniform and a change of underwear, when her mother, one hand stifling a yawn, padded into the kitchen.
Nechama Bailor didn't think her daughter had seemed different that morning. “In a rush, maybe,” she said on reflection, “but teenage girls are always like that, aren't they?” Nechama was almost certain Hadassah had kissed her good-bye.
“Dassie
always
kisses me before she leaves,” the mother said, using the present tense from habit and hope and touching her cheek gingerly, as though she didn't want to disturb the airy brush of her daughter's lips.
BY ROCHELLE KRICH
Where's Mommy Now?
Till Death Do Us Part
Nowhere to Run
Speak No Evil
Fertile Ground
IN THE MOLLY BLUME SERIES
Blues in the Night
Dream House
Grave Endings
Now You See Me . . .
IN THE JESSE DRAKE SERIES
Fair Game
Angel of Death
Blood Money
Dead Air
Shadows of Sin
SHORT STORIES
“A Golden Opportunity”
Sisters in Crime 5
“Cat in the Act”
Feline and Famous
“Regrets Only”
Malice Domestic 4
“Widow's Peak”
Unholy Orders
“You Win Some . . .”
Women Before the Bench
“Bitter Waters”
Criminal Kabbalah
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Grave Endings
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2005 Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 2004 by Rochelle Majer Krich
Reading group guide copyright © 2005 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-41536-3
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