Neverhome

NEVERHOME By Laird Hunt – To be Discussed on Wed. July 6, 2016 at Geneseo Public Library

She calls herself Ash, but that's not her real name. She is a farmer's faithful wife, but she has left her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War. NEVERHOME tells the harrowing story of Ash Thompson during the battle for the South. Through bloodshed and hysteria and heartbreak, she becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman and a traitor to the American cause.

Laird Hunt's dazzling new novel throws a light on the adventurous women who chose to fight instead of stay behind. It is also a mystery story: why did Ash leave and her husband stay? Why can she not return? What will she have to go through to make it back home?

In gorgeous prose, Hunt's rebellious young heroine fights her way through history, and back home to her husband, and finally into our hearts.

Questions:

1) From the opening sentence, we know that the narrator, Ash, chooses to fight in the Civil War instead of her husband. By the end of the novel, we recognize there may be several different reasons for her choice. What was her greatest motivation for leaving? What do you believe Ash herself believes about her choice?

2) Does Neverhome change your understanding of the Civil War?

3) As represented in Neverhome, what is the role of women in the Civil War, and the relationship between women and violence in particular? What might be the larger implications of Ash donning a woman’s dress to evade and then kill the bandits?

 4) Describe Ash’s relationships with the various women in the novel, such as Neva, Ash’s mother, and the Colonel’s wife. How are the relationships similar? How are they different? What do her interactions with each reveal about Ash?

5) Discuss the role of men in Ash’s life, both before and during the War.

 6) Why do you believe the Colonel takes such a particular interest in Ash? Discuss the squirrelhunting, the battle midway through the novel with the Colonel’s kinsman, and the visit in the psychiatric hospital, in particular.

 7) How does Ash feel about her husband and her marriage? Do those feelings change when she returns from the war? Are those feelings changed by the end of the book?

8) The narrative is arranged as a series of alternations between intensity and calm, horror and grace, reaction and reflection. How does this structure clarify your understanding of war, and deepen your understanding of Ash?

9) Go back through the novel and highlight the letter-writing efforts of Ash and others—what role do letters play in the story? Most fundamentally, what does the act of letter-writing perform for the novel’s characters?

10) How do you interpret the symbolic import of Weatherby’s greenhouse? How might his damaged grandson be connected to its construction?

11) What is Ash’s motivation for telling her story? Is Neverhome a confessional, and if so, is there more than one reason for Ash to confess? What acts, both major and minor, impel her to tell her story? Does Ash actually understand or know herself?