In superbly crafted prose, Mary Morris captures the drama—and danger—in the everyday and on the road. In her novels, short stories, and travel memoirs, including the acclaimed Nothing to Declare, Morris has dazzled us with her command of location—rendering the unfamiliar places that are not home, the shadowy terrain of memory and love. Returning to the Latin America she knows so well, Morris tells the gripping tale of two women from different cultures whose lives intersect at a point that promises freedom to one and disaster to the other. Maggie Conover, a travel writer on assignment in the Caribbean island nation known as la isla, is being held in detention, restricted to her hotel. The authorities are interested in her friendship with Isabel Calderón, the fiery daughter of the island’s revolutionary leader. Maggie met Isabel on a previous visit and was struck by her independence, her disgust for her father, and her intense longing to escape. Now Isabel has disappeared, and Maggie is suspected of knowing her whereabouts. As Maggie is interrogated, bullied, and brought to a fever pitch of anxiety, she recalls Isabel’s courage, her own troubled past, and her conflicted feelings for her husband and father. Maggie’s struggle with her fear of confinement and need for flight brings the novel to a climax of rich psychological complexity. Mary Morris captures the terror at the heart of this ordeal with the same subtlety that she uses to probe the complicate relationship between Maggie and Isabel. Suspenseful, yet finely textured, House Arrest is a tour de force of political and personal intrigue.
Mary Morris is the author of three previous novels (Crossroads, The Waiting Room, and A Mother’s Love), two story collections (Vanishing Animals and The Bus of Dreams), and two memoirs of a woman traveling along (Nothing to Declare and Wall to Wall). She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and nine-year-old daughter.
What People are Saying About This
Richard Ford
House Arrest is a novel that sneaks into one's thinking...it steadily and winningly opens forth...it's a subtle and intelligent and affecting book, fully aware of itself, fully formed.
Reading Group Guide
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.
Discussion Questions: 1. How would you describe Maggie's house arrest? Is it just political, or does it operate on another level? If so, how?
2. Morris 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 Morris chose to deal with this material in a novel rather than as a work of nonfiction?
4. In telling these multilayered stories of women Morris use monologues. What function do these serve?
5. La isla is based on Cuba, yet Morris never calls it Cuba. How is or isn't la isla Cuba, and why do you think Morris 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?
About the Author: Morris began writing when she was a graduate student at Columbia. "I wrote one [short story] and sent it to Redbook. They bought it and paid me a phenomenal amount of money. I wrote another and they paid me more money. I thought, this is great, I'm going to make a living as a short story writer. Then for 10 years I didn't sell another story commercially . . . I was just about to give up when I got an NEA grant."
Mary Morris is also the author of the novels Acts of God, The Night Sky, (both available from Picador USA), Crossroads, and The Waiting Room; two travel memoirs, Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone and Wall to Wall: From Beijing to Berlin by Rail; and the award-winning story collections Vanishing Animals and Other Stories and The Bus of Dreams. Her new story collection is The Lifeguard. Mary Morris teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and daughter.
