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Martin Sloane
A Novel
by Michael Redhill
List Price: $13.95
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0316739367
Publisher: Back Bay Books
What does it really mean to love another person? The question hovers like a persistent wisp of fog over the story of Martin Sloane, an Irish-born artist who creates intricate, object-filled boxes, and Jolene Iolas, the young American woman who finds herself drawn first to Martin Sloane's art and then to the man himself. The story of their relationship across two decades, and of Jolene's search for Martin Sloane when one day he disappears from their home without warning or explanation, is told in a novel that brilliantly and movingly explores the vagaries of love and friendship, the burdens of personal history, and the enigmatic power of art.
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1. Discuss Martin and Jolene's first meeting. What draws her to him and to eventually fall in love with him, both as a man and as an artist? Does their age difference affect their relationship?
2. What happens the night Molly visits Jolene in Indiana? Why does Martin then leave, never to return?
3. Why does Jolene go to Ireland to search for Martin Sloane at a point in her life when she finally moves past her relationship with Martin and is with a new love?
4. On page 177, Martin's father takes Martin to a church and tells him, "You're entitled to God's protection, no matter what your mother says, and refusing the gift of His love is as bad as succumbing to temptation. . . That's something that's between you and me and God, you understand, for always." How does this experience affect the young Martin?
5. Do you think Martin's childhood experiences - with his illness, of his move to Galway, and then to Canada while his father stayed behind - had any effect on his relationship with Jolene?
6. How has Jolene's mother's death affected Jolene's adult life? Does it relate to or influence her decision to later search for Martin Sloane?
7. Each chapter begins with a description of Martin Sloane's artwork. How do these descriptions relate to the chapters that follow and to the overall book?
8. The character and artwork of Martin Sloane was originally inspired by Joseph Cornell, a collage/sculpture artist from New York, active during the first half of the 20th century. If you have seen Cornell's art, does it affect how you read the character? How do you feel about fiction inspired by historical characters?
9. The book Martin Sloane makes references to James Joyce's writings in its settings and characterizations. How does this affect your read of Martin Sloane, if at all?
10. What was this story about for you? The search for love? For friendship? The meaning of memory? Of art? How do you feel about the author creating the character Martin Sloane as an absence in the novel?
11. Discuss the book's ending. What does it mean? Is it satisfying?
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"A memorable and satisfying read, Redhill's book leaves the reader with a child's sense of nostalgia and a sympathy for the impasses of adulthood."
—Publishers Weekly
"Redhill presents a remarkable first novel—his powerful language and mastery of character is thrilling, and the plot...never becomes cliche or predictable. A fantastic exploration into the guises and complexities of art, love, and memory."
—Booklist
"Mild and beautiful on the surface, Martin Sloane has explosives buried quietly in its emotional landscape.... The pacing of Redhill's writing is marvelous.... His language is masterful.... Martin Sloane is a subtle and intimate novel that warns us how gray and empty life becomes when we settle for bad copies, for unsatisfying imitations of real things."
—Beverly Daurio, Globe & Mail
"A powerful story.... For a first novel, even one polished through a dozen drafts over ten years, Martin Sloane is remarkably assured."
—Brian Bethune, Maclean's
"I read a superb novel yesterday, the kind that makes you lousy company for hours afterwards—because you want to mull over its details rather than be social, because you prefer its world to the one that, at dinner, you suddenly find yourself contending with.... Martin Sloane makes you realize just how thin and fleeting most of what passes for good fiction is."
—Noah Richler, National Post
"MARTIN SLOANE is a deeply moving first novel that reveals human truths with grace and humor. Michael Redhill's portrait of the artist and the magnetic influence on those around him is profound and full of affection. It is a book of constant surprises."
—Michael Ondaatje, author of THE ENGLISH PATIENT and ANIL'S GHOST
"Michael Redhill has created a thoughtful, quietly engrossing novel whose truths are all the more powerful for the delicacy with which they are revealed."
—Myla Goldberg, author of BEE SEASON
"Michael Redhill is a writer of considerable humanity and insight. His first novel is a highly crafted and subtly disturbing delight."
—A.L. Kennedy, author of ON BULLFIGHTING, ORIGINAL BLISS, and EVERYTHING YOU NEED
"MARTIN SLOANE sails right along, buoyed by graceful plotting and many surprises - but it also unnerves, which makes it a very satisfying novel indeed. Loyalty and loss come under close scrutiny here, and no reader will walk away from this story without feeling the excitement that arrives when assumptions get boldly rocked. This one's a keeper."
—Martha Cooley, author of THE ARCHIVIST
"MARTIN SLOANE is such a good novel it is hard to believe it is Michael Redhill's first. Lyrical, funny, moving, and writerly in the most engaging way, it deserves a wide readership."
—Wayne Johnston, author of THE COLONY OF UNREQUITED DREAMS
"Michael Redhill has achieved with this novel what Martin Sloane strives for in his boxes—a precision of emotions, life in miniature with all its details and complexity. Redhill's language is exacting and carefully chosen as he creates for the reader a composite and contradictory world that is at once haunting and beautiful. The book is in its own way a replica of the boxes, capturing the human condition where perfection eludes us as love does. This is a stunning debut, life-size and moving."
—Mary Morris, author of THE NIGHT SKY and ACTS OF GOD
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