When we arrived, no one else was in the room, and I shut off the lights so that she could see better. “It’s everywhere,” she said, and those were the last words I heard her speak.
She meant redemptive beauty, I think. Despite her many obstacles, what my mother succeeded best in doing was appreciating the many forms of beauty in life—as well as its possibilities. And she relished perhaps more than any other mother could the growth of her daughter, seeing in me a part of herself set free. I don’t think it’s any accident that I work for the airlines, that I am regularly lifted miles up into the sky.
After the funeral, Brenda told me my mother had always worried that the gamble she took in keeping me might have crippled me in a way different from her, but devastating nonetheless. When I heard that, I joined with so many others who wish for a chance to tell someone whom they’ve lost just one more thing.
I pray every night. I do it in an old-fashioned way, the way Peacie taught me, kneeling on the floor beside my bed, my hands folded beneath my chin, my eyes closed. I whisper the words aloud. At the end, I always say the same thing. I thank my mother. I tell her I’m fine. I say I’m happy. I say she was right.
We Are All Welcome Here
A Reader’s Guide
ELIZABETH BERG
A Conversation with Elizabeth Berg
Reader’s Circle: You’ve said in the past that until this book came along you hadn’t ever considered using a reader’s idea or story for one of your novels. But this time, with Pat Raming and Marianne Raming Burke, you took a real-life experience and made it your own. What was different this time? What about their story spoke to you?
Elizabeth Berg: It wasn’t the story that spoke to me, at least at first. Rather it was a photograph Marianne sent to me of her mother, Pat. Something in her face was so strong. I needed to know—and tell—about her. What I loved about the true story was Pat’s refusal to let extremely difficult circumstances prevent her from having a rich and rewarding life. When I wrote the fictional book, I was interested in looking at a lot of issues. One of these was: Is it “fair” for a severely handicapped woman to try to raise an able-bodied child? Another was: What does freedom really mean?
RC: Paige and Diana may have been based on real people, but they are fictional characters. How did you balance the Ramings’ story with the Dunns’ story? And how did you create such a rich, vibrant, and unique mother/daughter dynamic?
EB: Oh, this is always such a hard question to answer. The short answer is, Beats me. A longer one is that as a writer you look at something real, and then you consider what might have been if…. My imagination is always straining at the leash, asking to embroider, embellish, and change the things I see. I can’t explain how it works, really, how stories and characters are created, but it is very much tied up with trusting the unconscious. Ultimately, the less I know about what I’m doing, the better the work is.
RC: We Are All Welcome Here is rich with historical detail of the 1960s South and the political upheaval of the time. How did you re-create this time period for your readers? Did you talk to people who lived there, do research, or both?
EB: I went to the library and read history. And watched documentaries. I also looked at magazines from that time.
RC: Until now, most of your books have been set in the Midwest and the Northeast—places you have lived. But this novel is so much about the South. Was it different to write about the South, and to write about southern characters? How? Do you think you’ll return to the South for another novel?
EB: Durable Goods takes place in Texas, but Texas is very different from Mississippi. I’m nuts about the South—the people, the language, the food, the land, the stories and writers that come from there—but it’s hard to know whether I’ll use it as a location again.
RC: Elvis has a very interesting role in this story. What made you include him, and what do you think he adds to the story?
EB: Elvis is symbolic of a lot of things, dreams coming true being one of them. I didn’t know I was going to put him in, but I was happily surprised at the way he did appear.
RC: What are you working on now?
EB: I just finished a novel called Dream When You’re Feeling Blue. It’s about three sisters and takes place during World War II. More research!! But it was really fun, because I love the forties: the food, the fashion, and especially the music.
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. Elizabeth Berg includes an Author’s Note at the beginning of the book, informing us that this work of fiction is a bit different from her other novels. What did you think of this choice before reading Berg’s story? Did your opinion change after you read the book? How?
2. At the end of the Prologue, speaking about her mother and herself, Diana reflects: “[Elvis] had a kind of great luck and then terrible tragedy. For us, it was the opposite.” (p. 6) What do you think she means by this? After finishing the novel, do you agree with her?
3. Despite skepticism from the medical community, Paige Dunn gives birth to her daughter, Diana, in an iron lung, and they both survive. Even more amazingly, Paige is determined to raise Diana despite her condition. What do you think about Paige’s decision to keep her baby? Do you support her?
4. How does Paige compensate for her disabilities and serve as a strong parental figure for her daughter? Do you think Diana is forced to grow up a bit faster than other kids her age because of her mother’s condition? Why or why not?
5. Berg sets her novel in Tupelo, Mississippi, during the volatile Freedom Summer of 1964. How does she weave the events of the civil rights movement into her novel? Is the civil rights movement simply background for the story or a part of the story itself?
6. How does Peacie function in the novel? Describe her relationship with Diana. Is it motherly? Sisterly? Something different? How does Peacie interact with Paige? How is their relationship different from Peacie’s relationship with Diana?
7. Discuss Peacie and LaRue. What is their relationship like? How is their life away from the Dunns different? How does their relationship with Diana enhance her understanding of the political and cultural climate of the time?
8. Describe Diana’s friendship with Suralee. How do the girls interact? Why do you think Diana likes to play with Suralee? Can Suralee ever be a good friend?
9. What do you make of Dell’s courtship of Paige? Were you surprised by his treatment of her? Disappointed? How do you think Diana feels about their relationship, both while it is happening and once it is over?
10. Berg’s novel is full of strong female characters. Compare and contrast the women in the novel, from Paige to Peacie to Mrs. Gruder to Mrs. Halloway and others. How are they similar and dissimilar? What about Diana and Suralee? How do they assert themselves as strong figures in the novel, even though they are still very young?
11. Consider how Diana changes and grows throughout the course of the novel. How does she react when her mother gets sick? When her father rejects her? When Peacie and LaRue leave town? Discuss her progression as a character.
12. Berg chooses interesting and appropriate names for a few of her characters, such as Peacie. Do these monikers enrich the characters, in your opinion? Do any other names stand out for you? Why?
13. In the beginning of the novel, Diana reflects, “I believed that despite what people said, money could buy happiness.” (p. 8) Does this prove true in the novel? Do you think she changes her mind after winning the sweepstakes? Why or why not?
14. Elvis Presley makes a grand entrance at the end of the novel. What did you make of his appearance? What did you think of Paige’s reaction to it? Were you happy to see him? Were you disappointed that he doesn’t return?
15. At the end of the novel, Diana tells us that she says a prayer every night, and that she always thanks her mother. Diana adds, “I tell her I’m fine. I say I’m happy. I say she was right.” (p. 187) What do you think she means? What was Paige right about?
A beautiful new novel abo
ut the strength of family, the horrors of World War II, and love against all odds, from the bestselling and beloved author Elizabeth Berg
Dream When You’re Feeling Blue
COMING SOON FROM RANDOM HOUSE
PEOPLE WERE PACKED IN SO TIGHTLY at Union Station that Kitty had to hold on to her hat lest it be jostled off her head and trampled. Elbows poked her; suitcases banged into her legs and she feared mightily for her very last pair of silk stockings. The noise level was so high, Julian had to lean in toward Kitty and practically shout to be heard. “Gonna write me every day?” he asked, grinning, and she nodded that she would. “Are you going to be careful for a change?” she asked, and he told her not to worry. He looked so handsome—there was something about a man in uniform—standing there with his duffel bag over his shoulder, his hat rakishly positioned at the side of his head.
Earlier that morning, Kitty and Julian and Louise and Michael had taken a Green Hornet streetcar to the train station and then breakfasted together at Fred Harvey’s. Both men ate every bite of food on their plates, but the sisters could hardly swallow their coffee. Now it was time to say good-bye—Julian was on the 8:11 to San Francisco; Michael would leave just a few minutes later, on his way to New York City.
“Boooard!” the conductor cried, then made his announcement again, more urgently. “Okay, kid,” Julian said. “I guess this is it.” He waved at Michael and Louise, who were holding hands and standing nearby, then kissed Kitty quickly. “Take care of yourself.” He spoke seriously, his voice thick, and for the first time she saw a glint of fear in his eyes. She stepped back from him and made herself smile brilliantly. She tossed her black hair and stuck out her chest. Already she knew how she’d sign the first photo she sent of herself: Hi, Private.
Louise was holding on to Michael and crying her eyes out, though she and Kitty had agreed not to do that, under any circumstances. They had agreed to look as pretty as they could, to wear their best outfits, to be cheerful and smile and wave at the boys as they pulled out of the station. They had agreed that it was their patriotic duty to behave in this fashion, and they had vowed to help each other be strong. But now Louise sobbed as Michael pulled away from her and ran for his train, and finally Kitty pinched her to make her stop. “Ow!” Louise said and pinched her sister back.
“Is this what you want him to remember?” Kitty asked.
Louise wiped at her nose with her sodden hankie. “I can’t help it.”
“You can!” Kitty told her angrily and then looked at Julian’s train, where she saw him hanging out a window and motioning for her to come over to him. He was packed in among so many other men, all those boys with all their caps, sticking their heads and their arms out of the windows, but she could have found Julian in the middle of ten thousand men. She ran over and grabbed his hand. “Good-bye, Julian. Be careful. I mean it.”
“I will, I promise. But Kat, listen, I almost forgot, I need you to do something for me. On Monday afternoon, go over to Munson’s jewelry store and tell them to give you what I left for you there.”
“What?” She laughed. “What do you mean?” A ring? Oh, it would be just like Julian, to do it this way! No bended knee, no flowery words of love. Instead, a cocksureness that Kitty found irresistible. Only a girl who had wrapped many men around her finger would be delighted by such cool assurance.
The train hissed loudly and began moving forward. Kitty ran alongside, mixed in with a crowd of mostly young women, some smiling, some weeping, all reaching up toward the hands of the boys who were leaving them behind. “I love you!” Kitty shouted. “Julian! I love you!” The words were new, shiny inside her.
“Munson’s Jewelers, on Wabash near Harding’s,” he shouted back. The train picked up speed, and Kitty stopped running. Then she and the others on the platform stood still, watching the train grow smaller and finally disappear. It had become so quiet; a place that moments ago had reverberated with sound was now still as a chapel. Pigeons fluttered up onto steel beams and sat silent in rows, their feathers ruffled in the morning cold. Kitty became aware of the dampness of the place, the basementy smell, the spill of weak sunshine through the high, dusty windows onto the tracks below. And then, slowly, people began walking away, talking quietly to one another. One woman was holding a brown bag and crying to her husband about their son forgetting his lunch. “The other boys will share their food with him,” the father said, and the mother said but she wanted him to have the lunch she had packed, his favorite cookies were in there. “Someone else will have cookies,” the man said, and the woman said no, no one else would. She bumped into Kitty, crying hard, and apologized. Kitty touched her arm and said it was all right.
Louise stood forlorn and dry-eyed, holding her pocketbook hard against her middle. Kitty linked arms with her. “Now you stop crying,” she said, and Louise said, “I know. I’m a dope.”
They took a cab home, an extravagance. But they didn’t want to wait for the next streetcar, and anyway, Julian had given Kitty money so they could do exactly that. At first she’d thought about using the money for something more practical, but now she luxuriated in the fact that the cab would take them exactly where they were going, directly from where they had been. It was swell. She was Rita Hayworth, and Louise was Dorothy Lamour. She leaned back and looked out the window. There were their fans walking down the sidewalk, wishing they’d come out and sign autographs.
At a stoplight, Kitty pointed to the spring dresses in the window of Marshall Field’s. “Look how boxy sleeves are getting,” she said, and Louise snapped back, “Jeez! How can you even think about that now?”
Kitty fell silent, but in her head, she started the Mills Brothers singing “Paper Doll.” You couldn’t think about those boys and where they were going. You had to think about something else. Louise began to weep again, and the driver reached back over the seat to give her his handkerchief, frayed at the edges but clean and neatly folded. “Dry your eyes now, darlin’; he’ll be back before you know it,” the man said. He was Irish, as they were.
Louise cried harder, but through her tears she said, “Thank you very much. I’ll wash it and iron it and send it right back to you.” The Heaney girls were nothing if not polite—their mother made sure of that. The Dreamy girls, the sisters were called, for their considerable beauty; and their mother seemed to feel it was her duty to prevent their good looks from going to their heads. You didn’t want to be caught lingering before a mirror when Margaret Heaney was anywhere nearby. “Well, now,” she’d say, her arms crossed. “Don’t we find ourselves a fascination.” And then she’d suggest that if you had so much time on your hands, you might find a way to make yourself useful, and if you couldn’t think of something to do, she’d be glad to help you. Rugs didn’t beat themselves, you know, there was that. The refrigerator needed defrosting, the bathroom and kitchen floors had to be scrubbed.
But their mother was also proud of them. And she not infrequently remarked on how the beauty found in all her children—the dimples, the long lashes, the thick, lustrous hair, the clear skin—didn’t come from nowhere. Whereupon their father would inflate his chest, stick his thumbs under his suspenders, and say, “’Tis true! And no need to look any farther for the source!”
“You’re going to give yourself a headache with all that crying,” Kitty told her sister, and Louise said, “I don’t care! I want a headache!” Indeed, Michael’s mother lay at home on her living room sofa with a sick headache, a cold rag across her forehead, a throw-up bucket at her side—she’d been unable to come to the station, and Michael had told his father to stay home and take care of her. Julian’s parents had not come to the station, either. They’d said they wanted to give Kitty and Julian that time alone, but Kitty knew that, although they were proud of their only son, their hearts were broken at his leave-taking. They needed to keep their good-byes—and their anguish—private. Kitty turned to stare out the window again. Louise really ought to look at the beautiful things in the store windows: the hats lodged n
estlike on the mannequins’ heads; the red open-toed shoes with the ankle straps. Or she ought to think about what she might say in her letter to Michael that night. They had agreed they would write to their men every night until they were safely back home: they’d put each other’s hair up and get into their pajamas and then sit at the kitchen table and write at least two pages, every night, no matter what. Tish was already writing to three men she’d met at USO dances.
Kitty snuck a look at her still-weeping sister. What weakness of character! Louise needed to stop thinking about herself. She could think about her job as a teacher’s aide, or her friends, or their three little brothers, only eight, eleven, and thirteen but out almost every day with their wagon, collecting for the metal drive. They got a penny a pound, and they’d raised more money for war bonds than any other kids in their Chicago neighborhood—they’d even had their picture in the newspaper. It didn’t do any good for Louise to carry on this way. It didn’t help Michael or even herself. But then Kitty’s throat caught, and she reached over to embrace her sister, and she began to cry, too. Julian with the sun in his hair, saying good-bye, perhaps forever.
“Ah, now, girls,” the cabbie said. “Get hold of yourselves, won’t you. We’ll take care of them Japs in short order, don’t you doubt it! And then wait and see if I’m not the very one taking you all home again! And won’t we be celebratin’! You keep my handkerchief; I’ll collect it from you on that far happier occasion.”