House Arrest
by Mary Morris
List Price: $12.00
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0312155476
Publisher: Picador USA
House Arrest is the harrowing novel about Maggie Conover, a travel writer in a Caribbean island nation, who is placed under house arrest in her hotel after befriending the missing daughter of the nation's revolutionary leader. As Maggie is interrogated, bullied, and brought to a fever pitch of anxiety, she recalls her new friend's courage, her own troubled past, her longing for home, her daughter and family. Based on Mary Morris's own experience in Cuba, House Arrest is a story of both personal and political intrigue, as well as the meanings of freedom and its loss.
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1. How would you describe Maggie's house arrest? Is it just political, or does it operate on another level? If so, how?
2. Morri was actually arrested in Cuba so there is an autobiographical component to this book. Where do you think the truth ends and the story begins? What clues do you have that this is the case?
3. Why do you think Morri chose to deal with this material in a novel rather than as a work of nonfiction?
4. In telling these multilayered stories of women Morri use monologues. What function do these serve?
5. La isla is based on Cuba, yet Morri never calls it Cuba. How is or isn't la isla Cuba, and why do you think Morri chose not to name it?
6. Maggie is taking a definite risk in helping Isabel. Why does she take such a risk?
7. What do the different voices contribute to how we read this story? How do they help us interpret la isla?
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" [Morris's] writing is filled with a sense of how relationships are perpetually mismatched, of how the still zone of indecision is somehow at the heart of life, and how travel can be at once numbing and revelatory. "
—James Saynor, The New York Times Book Review
"Morris is extremely good at evoking exotic claustrophobia . . . "
—New Yorker
"In House ArrestMorris weaves a taut story that will haunt readers. "
—Anne Morris, Fort Worth Star—Telegram
"House Arrest explores some of the best and worst of being a woman: Morris makes us feel the allure of female friendship, its multilevel complexity and resonance; she also probes the way women are imprisoned by men and possibly even societies designed by men. "
—Andy Solomon, San Francisco Chronicle
"Maggie's hopes and fears, as well as those of Isabel, estranged daughter of the island's revolutionary leader, are intimately revealed, allowing us to feel the isolation and desperation that both women experience. "
—Library Journal
