The High Flyer (52 page)
And I always start with the characters. The plot evolves from the characters and what needs to happen to them. I think about it for a long time. I write each of my books five or six times from beginning to end. With each rewrite, the plot develops, deepens, and becomes inevitable. That’s the way I get depth. With the first draft, I just don’t know that much. The process is like peeling an onion, where I uncover layer after layer. That’s just the way it is. It takes time to get the people and the plot synchronized. I don’t paint pictures, but I am told writing a novel is like painting a picture. You slap colors on the canvas, build it up and then whittle it down. That is how I write. Some difficult scenes have to be written eight or nine times. In
The High Flyer
, the scenes with Kim and Carter at Oakshott were hard. I did not want to leave anything out and also wanted the tension to build with Carter so that at the end she is absolutely terrified. That’s how I work; there is always lots of rewriting.
Q: Reviewers always comment upon the delicate balance you strike
among the spiritual, the sensual, and the suspenseful. How do you
manage it?
SH: I’ve no idea. Creation is always a complete mystery to me. I do what I can and hope for the best. I have been doing this for a long time. I started writing novels when I was twelve. I was first published when I was twenty-five. I have spent thirty-five years as a professional writer, and experience does count.
Q: You are a prolific author with a long and distinguished career. To
what would you credit your staying power and continued success in
the writing profession?
SH: I enjoy what I do. And I have wonderful publishers. Leona Nevler, my paperback publisher, and I have worked together since the early 1970s.
Q: What writers have influenced you?
SH: The great Victorian novelists—Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, and especially Wilkie Collins. Collins is generally considered of the second rank, but I have learned a great deal from his work. He used multiple narration to great effect, a technique I do not use in this novel, but I have used it frequently in the past. In addition to the Victorians, I have been influenced by American detective fiction of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, including the work of Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. I am also a great fan of the British novelist Iris Murdoch who died recently. The big three would be Collins, Chandler, and Murdoch, in terms of influence.
Q: What would you put on a
must
read
list for a reading group?
SH: My next book! I am quite shameless.
Q: What are you working on right now?
SH: The third and final book in the St. Benet’s series. It is going to be a surprise for everyone, especially those in the Church. It is about a prostitute—a male, not a female. Gavin is a straight guy who delivers the goods to businessmen in the City of London and comes in contact with the people at St. Benet’s. It has the same setting as
The High Flyer
and
The Wonder Worker
, and will tie in with many of the same characters, like Alice and Nicholas. And Carter will reappear and share the narration with Gavin this time around.
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. Reverend Lewis Hall tells Carter, “You can’t limit the power of God by your unbelief.” Discuss the meaning of this statement. Do you agree or disagree?
2. What do you think of Carter’s spiritual journey? Do you think she will make it all the way? What did you find most and least satisfying about her journey?
3. Eric Tucker tells Carter that her god is Order. Why is order so important to her?
4. In what ways do the inhabitants of St. Benet’s-by-the-wall help Carter to save her own life? And what does Carter do for them?
5. This novel explores the limits and liabilities of romantic love. Have you ever been blinded by love as Carter and Kim are?
6. Carter muses to Kim, “I suspect a lot of us are stupid in some way or other as the result of being booted around by a loved one when we were small.” How have Carter and Kim’s childhood experiences shaped their lives and their relationship?
7. Carter struggles mightily to figure out what kind of man Kim is. What do you think of him?
8. According to David F. Ford, in a quotation that prefaces chapter 3, “ ‘In intimate relationships it is constantly surprising that the deeper we become involved the more mysterious the other can become.’ ” Do you agree?
9. How does Carter’s understanding of London change over the course of this novel?
10. Carter seeks and is offered advice by many different characters in this novel. Whose advice did you find most and least sound?
11. Carter finally makes peace with her parents by the end of this novel. Do you think it will last? Why or why not?
12. Do you think the idea of a life-plan, such as Carter’s, is a good one? Do you or have you had one? If so, how has it worked out?
13. What do you think prevented the normally sensible and confrontational Carter from talking to Sophie or reading her letters?
14. What do you think happened the night Sophie died?
15. Have you ever encountered anyone like Mrs. Mayfield—even in a less extreme form—who uses people’s vulnerabilities to control, manipulate, and do harm? How would you deal with such a person?
16. Do you have a favorite character in this novel? If so, explain.
17. If you could have a conversation with one of the characters in this novel, which one would it be, and what would you want to talk about?
18. How does your group decide what to read? Why did the group choose this book?
19. How does this novel compare with other works the group has read?
Excerpts from reviews of Susan Howatch’s
The High Flyer
“Howatch pitches her thoroughly convincing battles in the mundane world, while engaging the larger forces of Christian good and evil. . . . The suspense . . . is tight.”
—Boston Globe
“[A] compelling plot, dynamic characters and a journey into the convolutions of the psyche. . . . Howatch doesn’t provide easy answers to the problem of evil. . . . As with Howatch’s other books, the plot is absorbing and the characters interesting. . . . The book is entertaining with moments of profundity. Fans will not be disappointed.”
—Rocky Mountain News
(Denver, CO)
“Howatch is the rarest of all novelists: A literate deep thinker who can write about religious themes without condescending to her readers or stereotyping her characters as cardboard cutouts representing good and evil.”
—East Valley Tribune
(Mesa, AZ)
“Howatch sets spiritual struggles against the backdrop of the real world with convincing clarity. . . . And she makes a case in this long and rewarding novel for slowing down, taking a contemplative approach.”
—
New Orleans
Times-Picayune
“The best thing about
The High Flyer
is its boldness in the face of convention. . . . The characters are believable and sympathetic.”
—Times Record News
(Wichita Falls, TX)
Excerpts from reviews of Susan Howatch’s
The Wonder Worker
“An absorbing novel of emotional, psychological, and spiritual exploration.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A delicious and delightful triumph.”
—The Boston Sunday Globe
“An amazing achievement . . . Howatch is in many ways herself a wonder worker. . . . She gets down to the bare bones of the battle between good and evil . . . [and] entertains us masterfully.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Riveting . . . a plain-girl wins the prince romance.”
—Booklist
“Enthralling . . . For fans of Howatch’s earlier novels about the Church of England, this is familiar and juicy territory. . . . In those novels, Howatch captivated readers with beautifully told struggles between earthly and spiritual forces. She does it again in
The Wonder Worker
. ”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“[A] compelling story. . . . After seventeen novels, including the acclaimed series about the Church of England, Howatch continues to write impressive fiction imbued with moral questions. . . . Howatch engrosses the reader in this splendidly wrought, provocative novel of spiritual ideas.”
—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“A look at the ways and means of healing, both spiritual and physical. . . . A good cup of hot tea and reading
The Wonder Worker
is a sure cure for a dreary winter.”
—Florida Times Union
“This book is so well written that readers will race through it.”
—Library Journal
About the Author
Susan Howatch was born in 1940. She obtained a law degree from London University and then immigrated to the United States, where she lived for eleven years. During that time she wrote eight novels, including her international best-sellers
Penmarric
and
Cashelmara
. In 1980 she returned to England, where she began to study Church history. The result was the six novels that make up the Starbridge series. In 1993 she made headlines by funding a lectureship in theology and natural science at Cambridge University. She is now at work on a trilogy about healing, set in modern London. The first of these “St. Benet’s” novels was
The Wonder Worker
, published in 1997. The second is
The High Flyer
, published in 2000, and she is currently working on the final book in the series.
ALSO BY SUSAN HOWATCH
The Wonder Worker
Absolute Truths
Mystical Paths
Scandalous Risks
Ultimate Prizes
Glamorous Powers
Glittering Images
The Wheel of Fortune
Sins of the Fathers
The Rich Are Different
Cashelmara
Penmarric
The Devil on Lammas Night
April’s Grave
The Shrouded Walls
Call in the Night
The Waiting Sands
The Dark Shore
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 1999 Leaftree Limited
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the
United States by The Random House Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York. Originally
published in Great Britain in 1999 by Little, Brown and Company (UK), London. First published
in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2000.
Ballantine is a registered trademark and the Ballantine colophon is a trademark of
Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published
material:
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.: Excerpts from
The Shape of Living
by David F. Ford. Reprinted
by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., London.
SPCK Publishing: Excerpts from
The Confessions of a Conservative Liberal
by John
Habgood. .
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: 2001118319
First Ballantine Books Edition: December 2001
eISBN: 978-0-307-41711-4
v3.0