The Homecoming of Samuel Lake (32 page)

And that’s the way things have gone along from that day until this. Not staying the same, but always changing. And that’s okay, because once one part of a thing changes, all the other pieces begin to shift, and pretty soon it’s a whole new story.

BEHIND THE SCENES

‘THEY’RE MY FAMILY AFTER ALL’

A Word from the Author

‘LOVE OR LOATHE’

Things to Think About

WHAT TO READ NEXT

‘THEY’RE MY FAMILY AFTER ALL’

The nature of the writer’s craft is a mysterious one. What is it that inspires authors to put pen to paper: curiosity, sympathy, passion, obsession? In her own words, Jenny Wingfield reveals what inspired her to write
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
…

Back in the nineties, I had a hankering to write a play. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was because someone told me that, in theatre, the writer is king. I’ve never really wanted to be any sort of royalty. I’d much rather be what I am: a gardener/goat-keeper who is also a storyteller. But I’d been writing screenplays for a while and had discovered that, in film, an awful lot of people get to have opinions about how a story unfolds. Having grown up in a string of parsonages, I’d had enough of other people’s opinions by the time I was twelve, so naturally the idea of writing something nobody could fiddle with appealed to me.

With no particular story inside me begging to get out, I put second things first by creating the set – actually, three in one, where a set change would only entail shifting the lights. What I came up with was a house, sandwiched between a grocery store and a bar. A place that never closes.

But who would live there? Well, my maternal grandmother had run a store similar to the one in the book. I gave her ‘Moses’. My grandfather had a long-standing love affair with liquor, so he got ‘Never Closes’ – and darned if he didn’t kill himself before I’d hardly started writing.

Not only that, but the story didn’t want to be a play, it wanted to be a book. By now, my brothers and I had wormed our way into the mix (bringing our parents and a whole slew of friends and relatives along), and we didn’t want to be stuck inside any old building. We wanted to smell the honeysuckle and race through pastures and splash in the creek and have adventures.

Now, stories are hard things to argue with. They have minds of their own. The only way to win with them is to give in, so I did. For a couple of weeks, I wrote like crazy. Then I had to put the book aside to work on other deadlines, and of course, one deadline led into the next. It was years before I revisited the Moses clan, but when I finally did, it was just like going home.

They’re my family, after all.

‘LOVE OR LOATHE’

From Socrates to the salons of pre-Revolutionary France, the great minds of every age have debated the merits of literary offerings alongside questions of politics, social order and morality. Whether you love a book or loathe it, one of the pleasures of reading is the discussion books regularly inspire. Below are a few suggestions for topics of discussion about
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
…

‘She was little. She was quick. And she was just what Noble dreamed of being. Formidable. You couldn’t get the best of her, no matter how you tried.’ After finishing this novel, to what extent do you agree with this early description of Swan Lake? In what other ways, if any, would you describe her?

What do you think is the significance of the shop, Moses, and the bar, Never Closes? What, in your view, do they represent?

The novel is set in 1950s Arkansas. In what ways do you think the author captures a sense of place? How successfully, in your opinion, does she do this?

Samuel Lake, Ras Ballenger and John Moses are the fathers in this novel. In what ways are they similar? In what ways are they different? Are there any other characters who you think represent strong father figures and why?

Family and faith are just two of the themes in
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
.
What other themes do you think are interwoven in the novel?

What are your views on the character of Bernice? How important do you think she is to the book?

Towards the end of the novel, Swan is raped by Ras. What impact did this have on you as a reader? How successfully do you think the author portrayed this shocking incident?

How would you describe the relationship between Samuel and Willadee? How, if at all, do you think it develops as the novel progresses?

The novel concludes with Toy being sentenced to prison for twenty years. How satisfied were you with the book’s ending?

The title,
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
,
refers to Samuel’s failure to secure a congregation and having to stay with the Moses family. Do you think this is a powerful title? Are there any other title possibilities that you think could work?

What genre do you think this novel falls under and why?