Senseless Acts of Beauty (25 page)

Dear Reader,

Some stories flow like cool, clear water and other stories flow like tears. I knew, as a mother of three wonderful daughters, that writing
Senseless Acts of Beauty
would be the latter. So I just want to say to those daughters—if any of you dare to pick up Mom’s book—that there are no secret babies I gave up for adoption, and you were all born happily from a loving relationship. This book isn’t about you.

And yet this book is all about them.

When Tess sees her daughter for the first time “it felt like a scrim had peeled off her eyes, and she could see the whole, wide world in all its goodness and badness, all its capricious randomness, complicated and full of senseless acts of beauty.” That was the feeling that gripped my labor-addled mind when the doctor first put each daughter squalling into my arms. When Riley talks about the “full-body, twenty-four-hour, never-ending immersion” that is parenthood, the “crazy three-a.m. feedings, the emergency room visits, the moments when you thought you lost them,” that was my anxiety hidden behind a smile from the days when I had to free them so they could learn how to dive, to drive, and to date.

But as I researched the many issues in this book—sexual assault, the reproductive choices a woman faces, the fate of children born of rape, and the intricacies of open and closed adoptions—I discovered a deep level of pain beyond the everyday highs and lows of parenthood. For some, the experience of becoming a mother is so fraught with confusion, complexity, and conflicting emotions that many women still can’t talk about it.

To the mothers and children who so bravely shared your experiences, I thank you. I hope I did your stories justice. I hope I reveal to others the same wisdom you gifted me—that every child born is an act of beauty.

Andto my readers, thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope my story will help you appreciate all the beauty in your life.

Lisa Verge Higgins loves to meet readers. If your book club has chosen a book by Lisa and you’re interested in arranging a phone or Skype chat, feel free to contact her at http://www.lisavergehiggins.com/contact.

1. Senseless Acts of Beauty
   circles around the idea that beauty and reason don’t always coexist, that beauty is inexplicable, often random, always in the eye of the beholder, and that the most heartbreaking, amazing creations can arise out of whimsy as well as serious intent—or even from no intent at all. In your own life, can you pinpoint a moment when you’ve witnessed a senseless act of beauty?
   
2. Tess’s discovery of her pregnancy months after the rape extends her emotional and psychological trauma, but also forces her off the streets. What if Tess had never become pregnant from the assault? How do you see her life evolving if Sadie never existed?
   
3. “Mothers cast long shadows,” Tess tells Sadie as she explains why she felt compelled to make an adoption plan. Certainly Tess’s mother, an unrepentant alcoholic, gave Tess no good example of parenting. But other mothers in this novel cast long shadows, too. Who do you think wields the most influence over Riley during this story—her adoptive mother or her birth mother?
   
4. Sadie sets off to find her birth mother claiming she has no expectations. (“I’d be pretty mad if my birth mother was an alcoholic or a drug addict or something. It would totally suck to have come all this way just to find out she didn’t care about anything but her next fix.”) But considering her reaction to meeting Riley, the research Sadie tackles, and later her reaction to discovering Tess, what do you think Sadie was really hoping for in a birth mother?
   
5. Tess and Officer Rodriguez have a long, contentious, and complicated relationship. That relationship begins to change as Tess realizes how deeply he regretted not stepping in to remove her from a dysfunctional home. How do you see that relationship evolving? Will Rodriguez become a father figure? Will they become friends? Or is there a possibility for a deeper relationship, among equals?
   
6. Riley describes herself as “a mute brown wren tumbling helplessly in the gale-force winds of other people’s advice,” yet when we meet her at the start of the novel, she has already quit a good job in New York City and left her husband. What combination of factors instigated this first startling life change?
   
7. Sadie said a lot of terrible things about her aunt Violet not wanting her in her house, yet when Riley and Tess reach Ohio they discover a woman doing the best she can for the many young children under her care. Why do you think the eight-year-old Sadie didn’t like living in Aunt Violet’s house in the first place?
   
8. Mother-daughter relationships, in all their fraught complications, inform many of the themes of
   Senseless Acts of Beauty.
   Considering all the examples in the book—the dysfunction of Tess and her mother, the fraught but loving relationship between Riley and her adoptive mother—how do you envision Tess’s relationship with Sadie evolving as time goes on?
   
9. When Riley hesitated to sign the divorce papers, her husband, Declan, nurtured hopes for a reconciliation. He even coaxed Riley’s own mother—who adores him—into arranging a meeting at the diner. What did Declan do wrong in this marriage? What did he do right? Was there any chance that they could have worked things out?
   
10. One of the major themes of
    Senseless Acts of Beauty
    is that no matter how smoothly and well thought out an adoption plan, it’s all but impossible to avoid anxiety, lasting emotional trauma, and doubt on the birth mother’s side and—later—a range of hard questions on the part of the adopted child, no matter how well loved by her adoptive family. Is open adoption the answer to these issues? Then what about situations like Sadie’s, where the pregnancy was brought on by terrible violence? What are the mother’s rights? What are the child’s?
    
11. Riley is haunted by failure—her less than stellar academic youth, her failed marriage, her failed business proposals to the banks, and now her failing camp. And yet, for a long time, she’s paralyzed by indecision. What keeps her from accepting one of the developer’s plans that would put her on better financial footing? Why is she so stubborn, at first, about not changing the nature of the camp? What, in the end, convinces her that bankruptcy—the ultimate failure—could actually mean a new beginning?
    
12. What do you think are Sadie’s feelings about her birth father, now that she knows about the circumstances of her conception? Do you think Sadie will someday seek him out? Should Sadie seek out his family, too? Should Tess help Sadie in this search?
    
13. As mentioned in the novel, thirty-one states in the United States have no laws on the books preventing rapists from claiming parental rights to biological children from those assaults. What rights—if any—should such a man have with regard to the children of those assaults? What protections should the children have? The mothers? Why do you think this lapse in the law exists?
    
14. At one point in her life, Tess made a stab at domesticity with Callahan, going so far as to keep a garden and raise chickens in Kansas. What factors do you think contributed to the destruction of that relationship? What elements in Tess’s background undermined the possibility of happiness? Do you think she set her farmhouse in Kansas on fire?
    
15. These three women—Riley, Sadie, and even Tess—yearn, consciously or unconsciously, for some sort of permanence in their unsettled lives. Riley has to lose what she most loves before she can build something new. Sadie discovers, at the end, that she has the privilege to choose. But the future of the most unsettled of them all—Tess—remains a mystery. What do you think Tess will choose to do going forward?
    
16. Riley’s biological mother stated, in the most brutal way, that she wants nothing to do with Riley. Do you think Riley would ever try to contact her biological mother again? Should Riley try to find out who her biological father is? Would Riley even want to? Is it possible to come to terms with living with such a mystery?
    

While studying for her PhD in chemistry, Lisa Verge Higgins wrote and sold her first novel. Now an author of seventeen books, this opera-loving mother of three has been twice named in Barnes & Noble’s General Fiction Forum for their top twenty novels of the year. Her stories about women’s lives and women’s friendships have been described by reviewers as “joyous, uplifting life lessons” that “inspire us to focus on what’s really important in our lives.” When not writing stories, Lisa works as a reviewer for
The New York Journal of Books
. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband and their three teenage daughters, who never fail to make life interesting. 

LisaVergeHiggins.com
http://facebook.com/lisavergehiggins

“4½ stars! Top Pick! Higgins’ latest wonderful, page-turning novel further confirms her status as a master storyteller. Her narrative beautifully chronicles the relationships and adventures of former friends with a heady mix of belly-deep laughter, tears and empathy.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“Women readers won’t wish to miss one mile of this rich, thoughtful, and sagacious novel. Men smart enough to want to know what women really think would be wise to dip a toe in Pine Lake.”

—
Library Journal

“Fans of chick lit will enjoy this humorous and uplifting homage to good friendships and a variety of Americana.”

—
Booklist

“This novel reveals the excitement of European travel while honestly reflecting on the pain and confusion that accompany the grieving process…[This] story of self-discovery is both heartwarming and thought-provoking.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“Compelling…Readers who lose themselves in this wonderful book will be rewarded with the discovery of the value of true friendship.

—
Kirkus Reviews

“Higgins does a nice job of balancing the characters’ voices, and with each woman at a different stage in her life, diverse readers will find something to connect to. A natural for group discussions.”

—
Booklist

“Do not miss this rich celebration of friendship—its power to heal, to fulfill, and to put life’s adventures into perspective. This book is as comforting as a cup of tea with your best friend.”

—Susan Wiggs,
New York Times
bestselling author of 
Return
 to Willow Lake

“Engaging…Higgins scores with a richly told story of what every girl wants, and the friends who’d sacrifice everything to help her get it.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“4½ stars! Higgins doesn’t use flowery verse; she presents hard realities, dysfunction, and, best of all, possibilities and hope. Her research shines through with brilliant factual narrative in a novel that you won’t soon forget.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“Characters that could have been stock (the rich girl, the Trekkie programmer) have a depth that is strengthened by relationships with family, boyfriends, the past, and, most important, friends.”

—
Booklist

“Reminiscent of the
Sex and the City
TV series…easy and fun, chock-full of humor and entertainment…relays the necessity of taking risks and the power of friendship to pick you up when you fall.”

—
Norfolk Daily News
(NE)

“A life-affirming novel…A happy reminder that life is all about taking risks.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Quirky, original, and startlingly refreshing, this is a novel about friends. It’s a novel about risks. And it’s a novel about dreams, what we thought they were and what we discover them to be…Great novel. Great reading.”

—TheReviewBroads.com

“A lovely novel with moments of deeply moving insight into what it means to be a mother, a wife, and a friend. Read it and share it with your own friends—you’ll be glad you did!”

—Nancy Thayer,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Hot Flash Club
and
Beachcombers

“An amazing novel of love, friendship, and community. A truly joyous read that marks an impressive debut.”

—Jane Porter, author of
Flirting with Forty
and
She’s Gone Country

“Poignant, romantic, and funny…about the need for our closest friends to occasionally give us a shove in the right direction when we’ve lost our way. You’ll recognize yourself in these women. I loved it.”

—Claire LaZebnik, author of
Knitting Under the Influence
and
If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now

“Expertly woven together by Lisa Verge Higgins…simply but beautifully written…the common thread is Rachel, who has given the best gift a friend can give—a second chance.”

—RomanceJunkies.com