The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch
by Marsha Moyer
List Price: $13.95
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 006008166X
Publisher: Avon
I was thirty-three years old when my husband walked out into a field one morning and never came back, and I went in one quick leap from wife to widow.
Lucy Hatch never expected more of life than to spend it on an East Texas farm with her silent and stoic husband, Mitchell. Now that the curtain has abruptly come down, she's back where it all started -- in tiny Mooney -- living in a rundown old house perched on the edge of nowhere, meaning to carry out her widowhood in the manner of her old maid Aunt Dove, in peaceful solitude.
But life, and the folks of Mooney, have other plans for Lucy. In hardly any time at all, she's mortified her entire family. And without even trying, she's caught the eye of the local handyman, Ash Farrell -- lifting eyebrows and setting tongues wagging. Everyone in town, it seems, thinks the guitar-playing, lady-loving Ash is the wrong choice of company for a brand new widow. All Lucy Hatch knows for sure is that she hasn't had much worth remembering in her first thirty-three years. This is her life, after all, and for the very first time, she intends to live it.
Marsha Moyer's exhilarating debut is a funny, poignant, and winsome tale about self-discovery and starting over at the beginning -- and of love popping up in the most unlikely place and time to transform a heart and nourish a soul. You're never going to forget Lucy Hatch.
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1. Lucy returns to her hometown after her husband's death expecting quiet solitude, but instead finds a passionate new life she never imagined. Is it possible to return to our roots and reinvent ourselves? Can we really ever go home again?
2. Lucy tells us in the novel's first paragraph that "I didn't love Mitchell, but he was mine and that was something." Why did Lucy settle for a dull and barren marriage with Mitchell? How did it serve her?
3. Lucy has what might best be described as a prickly relationship with her mother, while her real mother figure is Aunt Dove. How did this influence Lucy's development, and how does it affect her approach to her new life?
4. Absent fathers is a recurring theme in the novel; both Lucy and Ash were abandoned as children by their fathers, and Ash himself left behind a wife and child. How are the characters affected by these absences? How are their relationships with one another influenced by them?
5. Ash is a man whose life has in many ways been defined by loss, yet he's managed to retain resiliency and faith in the future. Why does this element of his nature appeal so strongly to Lucy?
6. Lucy and Ash's budding relationship both scandalizes and titillates the residents of their hometown. How is their courtship influenced by this scrutiny? Do they come together because of or in spite of it?
7. Discuss the role music plays in the book, and in Ash's pursuit of Lucy.
8. Humor and pathos are interwoven throughout the novel. What is the function of each in the story? Does humor heighten tragedy, or diminish it?
9. In the final chapter, Lucy's observation of the memorial Ash has constructed for Mrs. Tanner's late husband evokes strong, and conflicting, responses in Lucy. What are some of the emotions this experience stirs up in her, and why?
10. Why is Lucy initially unable to grieve for Mitchell? When she does at last come to terms with his death, what has she learned? Could she have reached this knowledge without Ash's assistance? Do you think Lucy has forgiven Mitchell his shortcomings? Would Mitchell forgive Lucy hers?
11. Which character in the book did you best relate to on a personal level? Which one reminds you most of a friend or relative of your own? Which character would you most like to know? Why?
12. Could this story have happened anywhere but small-town Texas? What makes a piece of writing such as The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch regional, or universal?
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"Wonderfully satisfying…unusually refreshing…strong and intelligent… The first novel by Marsha Moyer stands out."
—Washington Post Book World
