Book Club Discussion Guide
Local Customs by Audrey Thomas ______About the Author
Award winning author Audrey Grace Thomas, née Callahan, is a novelist and short story writer born in Binghamton, NY November 17 1935. Audrey Thomas was educated at Smith College, Mass, and St Andrews University, Scotland, and then taught in England for a year. In 1959 she moved to Canada and in 1963 earned an MA at the University of British Columbia. From 1964 to 1966 she lived in Ghana, but eventually settled on Galiano Island. She has published more than 15 novels and short story collections, more than 20 radio plays, several broadcast on CBC Radio, and numerous travel articles, some of which featured in Air Canada's in-flight magazine. Thomas' writing has been described as feminine; her forte is the minutiae of women's lives, and she has claimed to strive "to demonstrate the terrible gap between men and women" and "to give women a sense of their bodies." Her style is characterized by word play; she emphasizes puns, etymologies, euphemisms, words within words, and pointing to the inherent possibilities, ironies and ambiguities of language. This close attention to language highlights the act of writing itself, and the possibilities and impossibilities of communication in human relationships. Her writing is also rich with literary allusion, from Shakespeare to Conrad, and from the Bible to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Audrey Thomas is a multi-award-winning author. She has been recognized provincially, winning the Ethel Wilson Prize three times (for Intertidal Life, 1985, Wild Blue Yonder, 1991 and Coming Down from Wa, 1996). She has twice been nominated for the Governor General's Award (1984 and 1985), and has been internationally recognized with the Canada-Scotland Writer's Literary fellowship (1984-6) and the Canada-Australia Literary Prize (1989).
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In 1987 she won the Marian Engel Award, awarded annually to a female Canadian author for her contribution to Canadian literature. In 2003 Audrey Thomas won the Terasen Lifetime Achievement.
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Local Customs by Audrey Thomas ______
About the Book Letitia Landon, "Letty" to her friends, is an intelligent, witty, successful writer, much sought after for dinner parties and soirées in the London of the 1830s. But, still single at thirty-six, she fears ending up as a wizened crone in a dilapidated country cottage, a cat her only companion.
Just as she is beginning to believe she will never marry, she meets George Maclean, home on leave from his position as the governor of Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast of West Africa. George and Letty marry quietly and set sail for Cape Coast. Eight weeks later she is dead — not from malaria or dysentery or any of the multitude of dangers in her new home, but by her own hand. Or so it would seem.
Local Customs examines, in poetic detail, a way of life that has faded into history. It was a time when religious and cultural assimilation in the British colonies gave rise to a new, strange social order. Letty speaks from beyond the grave to let the reader see the world through her eyes and explore the mystery of her death. Was she disturbed enough to kill herself, or was someone — or something — else involved?
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Local Customs by Audrey Thomas ______Discussion Questions
1. How did you experience the book? Were you engaged immediately, or did it take you a while to "get into it"? How did you feel reading it—amused, sad, disturbed, confused, bored...?
2. Describe the main characters—personality traits, motivations, and inner qualities. • Why do characters do what they do? • Are their actions justified? • Describe the dynamics between characters (in a marriage, family, or friendship). • How has the past shaped their lives? • Do you admire or disapprove of them? • Do they remind you of people you know?
3. Are the main characters dynamic—changing or maturing by the end of the book? Do they learn about themselves, how the world works and their role in it?
4. Discuss the plot: • Is it engaging—do you find the story interesting? • Is this a plot-driven book—a fast-paced page-turner? • Does the plot unfold slowly with a focus on character? • Were you surprised by complications, twists & turns? • Did you find the plot predictable, even formulaic?
5. Talk about the book's structure. • Is it a continuous story...or interlocking short stories? • Does the time-line move forward chronologically? • Does time shift back & forth from past to present? • Is there a single viewpoint or shifting viewpoints? • Why might the author have chosen to tell the story
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the way he or she did? • What difference does the structure make in the way you read or understand the book?
6. What main ideas—themes—does the author explore? (Consider the title, often a clue to a theme.) Does the author use symbols to reinforce the main ideas?
7. What passages strike you as insightful, even profound? Perhaps a bit of dialog that's funny or poignant or that encapsulates a character? Maybe there's a particular comment that states the book's thematic concerns?
8. Is the ending satisfying? If so, why? If not, why not...and how would you change it?
9. If you could ask the author a question, what would you ask? Have you read other books by the same author? If so how does this book compare. If not, does this book inspire you to read others?
10. Has this novel changed you—broadened your perspective? Have you learned something new or been exposed to different ideas about people or a certain part of the world?
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Local Customs by Audrey Thomas
______Reviews
Thomas has a faultless ear for dialogue, for how people sound... And she has a camera eye for physical detail. Margaret Atwood
In this captivating account of the life --and mysterious death-- of an early 19th c. English poet, Audrey Thomas re-imagines a moment of historical change in West Africa with insight and uncanny verisimilitude. Eleanor Wachtel
Audrey Thomas is not a romantic, nor is she a narrow satirist of false sophistication. She is a realist and a terrible comedian who exposes her characters in a light 'like the intense glare of the sun against the white walls of the houses'. Jane Rule Globe and Mail
The author's writing is stylistically brilliant. Publishers Weekly
Audrey Callahan Thomas's specialty is not a region but a gender. She is intensely, assertively feminine...Mrs. Thomas's perceptions...are brilliant. New York Times Book Review
A gripping tale about the role of colonial presumption and misadventure in the demise of the English poetess Letty Landon only eight weeks after her arrival, as the new bride of its white governor, on the slavery-haunted Gold Coast of Africa. Sharon Thesen, Professor, Department of Creative Studies, UBC Okanagan
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An assured stylist whose elegant turns of phrase and convincing incorporation of period details are put to good use here, Thomas vividly portrays Letty in her London element, where the scenes depicting her lukewarm courtship with George are wonderfully cringe-making. National Post
Thomas constructs a romantic, sometimes comic adventure spiced up with vivid images, tropical redolence, and the lurking spectre of violence. The period ambiance and conversational rhythms are deftly captured. Thomas is especially good on the solitudes of Victorian marriage. Quill & Quire
A beguiling and assured tale that’s nimbly told. Vancouver Sun
The castle and those who once passed through it give Local Customs an almost gothic flavour, appropriate considering how Georgians and Victorians devoured such stories. Thomas has stripped away the flowery accoutrements of these 18th- and early 19th-century novels, but not the details that give a novel and its characters life, or the pacing that underlies the mystery. Montreal Gazette
The ambiguity of the novel only contributes to the haunting, dreamlike feel of this stunning book from one of Canada’s great, too-little-lauded literary figures. Georgia Straight
Local Customs is a story with a mystery at its core, but also an examination of the systemic subjugation of individuals for reasons of gender or race. In one sense, this is the story of a colonial governor and his lady – a woman who was believed to have been either murdered or died by her own hand. In Thomas’s hands it gains resonance and becomes the story of a not uncomplicated life and a woman capable of leaving it without regrets. Globeandmail.com
[Audrey Thomas’s] plot is clever, and with close attention to detail, she spins a narrative both nuanced and suspenseful, a skillful slice of good storytelling.
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London Free Press
The dramatic death of L.E.L in an exotic and remote place – seemingly by her own hand with prussic acid – became a cause célèbre in its day, and various theories have been expounded on it ever since. The novel’s ending is not overt but gives enough clues as to who, or what, might have been responsible, and it may inspire readers to research the real story for themselves. Recommended for its mystery and fascinating historical setting. Historicalnovelsociety.org
The first line of Local Customs, enticing and chilling, floats on its own page between the dedication and prologue. Audrey Thomas casts a spell with, “Letty: I can speak freely now that I am dead.” Toronto Star
In this fascinating book, Thomas’s best, we find a complex portrait of a highly interesting woman whose better –and worse-qualities destroy her. Literary Review of Canada
Among the many voices that narrate the novel, Letty speaks from the grave to the reader, a chilling effect that brings historical Africa into perspective. Sun Times
A fascinating novel. Parry Sound North Star
The nightly disturbances outside Letty's door are so hair-raising, they bring to mind Shirley Jackson's ghost story, The Haunting of Hill House. There is no question that such a setting as Gold Coast castle would be haunted, given its abominable history. Audrey Thomas is adept, as always, in depicting the influences - the local customs- of the era, both in Western Africa and in England. Geist Magazine
Thomas is at the top of her game with this elegantly written, deeply felt gem of a novel. Ann Ireland author of The Blue Guitar and The Instructor
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Once again Audrey Thomas proves that a writer can deliver great narrative even while she is finding new ways to compose a book. I just sat and read her new novel while the world somehow went on without me. George Bowering
Magical writing. Alice Munro, winner of The Nobel Prize in Literature 2013
…this captivating account of Lettie Landon’s life and mysterious death will appeal to fans of historical fiction. Bookshelfreviews.com