Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions from the Publisher
1. In the preface we are introduced to Musette Belle and her ability to "read the future." Most Belle women have retained this gift of "sight." In what other ways do the Belle women see differently? How do they use this gift to enrich their community?
2. What similarities do Angela and Charlotte share? What makes them distinctly different? What do you think these characters learn from each other?
3. "The Rock Orchard" of the title is a reference to a cemetery. "A cemetery is like an orchard. Some lives were sweet. Some bitter as lemons. And some were rotten to the core." The cemetery in Leaper's Fork is practically a character in itself - a place that figures especially in the lives of the Belle women, often in unexpected ways. In this way the cemetery sheds its stigma as a place of sadness and death. Discuss the cemetery as a place of happiness and rebirth. How does the cemetery serve as a turning point for Charlotte? For Lydia? For Reverend Thomas?
4. Reba Earhart and Mila are just two of the many people Charlotte inspires. "You are what you are, till you decide to be different," she says. Compare and contrast these two women - how did they both succumb to the initial lots they had drawn in life? What patterns of behavior did they share? How did they go about changing those patterns? How did they perpetuate the chain of inspiration in others around them?
5. Empowerment is an important factor throughout the novel. How do various characters overcome their circumstances? Does empowerment always come in the form of financial wealth? Where else do these characters find power?
6. What was the significance of Levon Sevier initiating the kiss at his and KyAnn's wedding?
7. Charlotte is described as having "a man's mind" and frequently engages in behaviors stereotypically reserved for men, such as drinking and smoking cigars. Discuss the reversal of gender stereotypes found throughout the novel? How does it change the reader's point of view on gender roles in society? Characters who adhere to the classic gender stereotypes are often viewed differently from those who break out of their gender roles, how?
8. The Belles, KyAnn Merriweather and Julia Mercer are independent women who take ownership of their sexuality. This intimidates some, and inspires others. By the end of the novel, both KyAnn and Charlotte are married. Does this in anyway undermine their independence? Why or why not?
9. Throughout the novel we see a variety of partnerships - business, friendship, marriage, religious and sometimes a blend of one or more. Discuss some of the partnerships found in The Rock Orchard? Which were most successful? Which surprised you most?
10. While national and world events are occasionally mentioned in The Rock Orchard? , much of the story seems to take place in a suspended space and time. Why do you think this is? How does it help the plot? Does it hurt the story in any way?
11. Where do you see Charlotte, Angela and Dixie in the next five years? In what ways will they have changed? In what ways will they remain the same?
12. Just for fun, imagine you are a casting director working on a film version of The Rock Orchard? . Discuss whom you would cast to play some of the main characters and why. Who would you cast for Charlotte? Angela? KyAnn? Adam? Lydia? Boone?
A Q&A with author Rebecca Wall:
1. This is your first novel. What inspired you to write The Rock Orchard??
A million snapshots in life just came together.
How did you stay focused and motivated?
Focus and motivation are not my problem. I loved living in Leaper's Fork with these people. I still wake up there.
What was the most difficult part of writing it?
Sometimes the images I could see in my mind wouldn't bleed onto the page.
2. You grew up in the South, and still reside there. How much did you draw on your hometown to create Leaper's Fork and its residents?
I blurred the line between fact and fiction quite a bit. My great-aunt Hattie worked at Mademoiselle's dress shop and they had a mynah bird. We played hide-n-seek in the graveyard, running through lightening bugs and hiding behind tombstones. One tombstone was an anchor with two children sitting on it like a swing. Both children had drowned. My great-aunt Birdie lived in an antebellum house that was used as a hospital during the Civil War. There were rust colored watermarks on the living room ceiling. My cousin, Earl, told me they were Yankee blood stains to scare me. Earl lives in the house now. I'm sure those Yankee ghosts are praying he'll die while away on vacation and haunt a Holiday Inn.
3. The Belles are a distinct breed of seductive, strong-headed, big-hearted women. Was there a Musette, a Charlotte or an Angela in your life that you drew from to create these characters?
I wasn't aware of it while writing, but my mother, as a young woman, was a lot like Angela, a dark, beautiful, bleeding heart with "the gift."
What role did this person play in you life?
I spent my childhood in church bazaars and making cakes for bake sales. Some of the things we made could have ten dollars worth of materials and a hundred hours in labor and they'd sell it for a dollar. I'd look around at those wonderful women and think, you have absolutely no idea what you're worth.
How did your characters come to you?
I have no idea. Writing, at its best, is like channeling music. You rest your fingers on the keys and hope they play.
4. Charlotte is, quite literally, a force of nature, exerting a gravitational pull on those around her. She is bawdy and tough, but ultimately a deeply caring person. What qualities do you share with her?
Charlotte dropped out of the writer's womb with some qualities I had to work on. Probably the quality we have most in common is we're both business women.
Which of her qualities do you wish you shared with her?
The hardest thing to do in life is to let someone you love make a mistake. Charlotte has a handle on this.
5. On Banyan Island, the subject of ordinary versus extraordinary, common versus uncommon is discussed on several occasions. What do you think makes a person extraordinary and uncommon?
They both move mountains, but the ordinary person uses a pick and shovel.
How do you nurture those qualities in yourself?
One shovel at a time.
6. Many of your characters feel tied or bound to their background and upbringing, whether it be one of wealth and privilege or poverty and abuse - until they are inspired to change. What are some things or people that have inspired you to make a change in your life?
The ideal is to be self-inspiring. The love of my life taught me that - and if the person you live with doesn't inspire you, you're probably living with the wrong person. I've also been known to find inspiration in a fortune cookie.
7. What lessons would you ideally like the reader to walk away with?
Whatever lessons they can carry. And that's the lesson I walked away with when writing the book.
8. When you write, do you find yourself writing to inspire, to educate or to entertain?
When the stars are aligned, all of the above.
What type of books are you drawn to?
I choose books like I choose friends. After an evening with them, I don't want to feel like sticking my head in the oven.
8. The residents of Leaper's Fork are truly endearing and make the reader want to check in on them long after the last page has been turned. Do these characters and this town have more stories in them?
Maybe.
Do you think you will write about them again?
Truthfully, I never know what will end up on the page until the end of the day.
9. What are you working on now?
My mother used to say, "The person who talks about it the most is doing it the least." That said, I don't talk about my work. But to keep my publisher from smothering me with a pillow, I will sayThe Rock Orchardwill not be my last book.
Read an Excerpt
Preface
Just because a woman is good at something doesn't necessarily mean it's what she should do in life. If that were the case, most of the women in the Belle family would be hookers. It is common knowledge that Belle women make hard men melt like butter in a pan. They are equally adept at reversing the process.
The Belles live in a house that sits on a bluff overlooking the river. It has the look of a place whose owners grew bored with their money long ago. Honeysuckle vines wind around the columns like thread on a spool, and roses, wild as weeds, scratch at the paint like chiggers. It's a mystery where the lawn ends and the cemetery begins. The Belles are of the mind that dead people make the best neighbors.
Several years back, in an effort to turn our boring little town into a tourist trap, the historical society put up a brass plaque outside the Belles' gate declaring the old house an historic site.
Bellereve, the plaque reads, was built in 1851 by Colonel Bedford Braxton Belle for his bride, Musette. During the War Between the States it was used as a hospital for soldiers of both armies who were wounded at the battle of Fort Donelson.
History, of course, is never real. People either glorify it or horrify it. Or at the very least color it. What the sign doesn't say is that the fingerprints of slaves are baked into the brick and that when the rain sets in, no matter how many times they plaster and paint, the blood of soldiers seeps through the ceiling and watery red drops drip from the chandelier like tears.
Nor does the sign say that Musette was Cajun French and the second wife of Bedford Braxton Belle. The first Mrs. Belle was neither dead nor divorced, but Musette had a way about her that made a man forget his wife -- and forget to breathe.
Musette had black hair and black eyes and could read the future better than most men could read the newspaper. And if she didn't like what she saw, she set out to change it.
"L'avenir n'est pas taillé dans la pierre," she'd say, as she slowly turned over the cards, "seulement votre épitaphe."
Loosely translated it means: "The future isn't carved in stone, only your epitaph."
They say Musette could dip her hand in the river and foretell the exact day it would freeze. She could lay her hand over a baby's heart and see his life as if he'd already lived it. Musette predicted fires, floods and tornadoes, and a month before Yankee soldiers marched across the Tennessee state line, she made the servants tear every sheet, petticoat, and pillowcase in the house into strips and roll them into bandages.
Despite her flawless track record, Bedford Braxton Belle wouldn't listen when she told him hard liquor would be the death of him. You can lead a horse to water, but a jackass takes his whiskey straight up. Musette lost her husband at the Battle of Franklin when a Union soldier shot him dead while he was drunkenly relieving himself under a persimmon tree. We rest easy knowing he didn't feel a thing.
Braxton Belle's life didn't bear enough fruit to fill a Dixie cup. But few men rise to the occasion. Most leave nothing more to show for their time on this earth than a stone to mark where their bones are buried. Musette wore black for the rest of her life, but then black was always her best color. And not a day passed that she didn't brush the leaves from Braxton's grave and kiss his granite marker. History may sweep aside the ordinary man, but women have a memory like flypaper.
Women love who they love, there is no rhyme or reason. Musette never loved another man; however, she didn't object to men loving her. They say she welcomed more men into her harbor than the Statue of Liberty. Despite the fact that every wife, widow, and spinster in town prayed for her early demise, Musette lived to be an old woman and died in her sleep. They buried her body in the cemetery next to the house overlooking the river, but her spirit lingers like a lover's perfume.
Musette's grave is marked with a white marble likeness of her that is so real, if you stare too long, you'll swear her head turns your way and her stone breast rises and falls. Naked as a jaybird, she stares a man straight in the eyes with a look on her face that is far from pious. On either side of her, fully robed angels, hands folded in prayer, gaze longingly toward heaven as if to say, "Lord, help us."
One man's art is another man's ache, and Musette continues to be as big a pain in the ass dead as she was alive. For over a hundred years the aesthetically challenged have frigidly fought to have Musette removed -- or at the very least, covered.
But money beats morality like paper beats rock. When an art professor from Nashville scrubbed the moss off the base and found "Rodin" carved into the stone, the balance of power shifted. The historical society immediately threw up a brass plaque declaring Musette an historic monument. Now scholars come from miles around to debate whether she is indeed an authentic Rodin of Paris, or an authentic Bodin from Memphis, whose family has been carving top-notch tombstones for as far back as anyone can remember.
Wherever the truth lies -- and around these parts truth reclines on a regular basis -- many a young man has familiarized himself with the female anatomy while studying the statue of Musette Belle, just as quite a few of their ancestors learned from studying the real thing. Even in death Musette continues to shock the good citizens of Leaper's Fork, and her descendants are doing their best to carry on her legacy.
Musette begat Solange, who begat Charlotte and Odette, who begat Angela, who begat Dixie. If there is one thing Belle women are fond of, it is begetting.
Some women barter their bodies like whores with wedding bands. Some use sex like a sword. But some women can touch a man and heal like Jesus. The man who sees sunrise from a Belle woman's bed will swear he's been born again.
Copyright © 2005 by Paula Wall
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