A Celibate Season Carol Shields Blanche Howard Paperback $12.95 Read more...

INTRODUCTION

What happens to a marriage when spouses live apart? This is the experiment undertaken by Jock and Chas over the course of ten months, during which Jock will pursue an internship in a distant city while Chas cares for the children and runs the household. There is nothing extraordinary about this story. Harsh economic realities have forced many families to make difficult compromises just to survive. What is extraordinary is the way the authors of this epistolary novel portray a relationship in jeopardy, imbuing it with the suspense of a mystery and the deep emotion of a love story.

Jock and Chas choose to communicate largely through letters, and their initial concerns about their new relationship center around the absence of sex. But, while the celibacy of their arrangement continues to be an issue for both partners, it soon becomes apparent that Jock and Chas are missing out on much more than sex. As their lives change and take shape over the months, they tackle exciting challenges with mixed success, meet new people, discover new strengths within themselves—in short, they experience a typical almost-year of ups and downs, right and left turns. The difference, of course, is that they have encountered these changes without the benefit of their partner's proximity, and outside the familiar patterns they had established as a family. Would Jock have discovered the depths of her compassion for disadvantaged women, and the thrill of making a difference in their lives, if she had stayed at home? Would Chas have realized his talent for poetry or summoned the courage to start his own business if he had landed a nine-to-five job with an architectural firm? Perhaps, but these new directions would have been undertaken with more deliberation, with both partners voicing their concerns, with more consideration for their repercussions. Families offer support, but they can also interfere with the processes of self-discovery.

Jock and Chas experience all of the delights and many of the limitations presented by an epistolary relationship. Their letters allow them to consider words carefully. They can be charming, sexy, sarcastic, and fearful, but they can also edit out these feelings if they feel the need. Letters offer freedom of expression but also the safety of disguise. There is a formality to a correspondence that forces the writer to articulate feelings without the benefit of a tone of voice, a thoughtful expression, or an affectionate caress. But these concrete sensations that give life and meaning to words are also the elements of a caring relationship. And as Jock and Chas pursue their daily goals thousands of miles apart, they become shadows in each other's lives. Their carefully chosen words are misread or ignored. Their missives cross paths like an argument on tape delay. Even the details of their children's lives are relegated to hastily scribbled postscripts. It is no wonder that their relationship begins to unravel.

In exploring the lives of this loving couple through their correspondence, Blanche Howard and Carol Shields revive a literary form that is practically extinct. Jocks and Chas's letters are a wonderful device with which to dissect a relationship that seems both ordinary and desirable on the outside but which, under stress, ripples with resentment, uncertainty, and mistrust. Woven into the letters along with the ordinary details of daily existence—lentils, sequins, dinner parties, broken furnaces—is the very real threat that their relationship has sustained irreparable damage. Will Chas and Jock's marriage survive this celibate season? Will it be stronger because of it? The answers to these enticing questions are left up to the reader. What is certain is that a relationship cannot be "shut down for a spell, the way we disconnect the pool in the winter or turn off the furnace in summer." Both Chas and Jock are different people from the couple who stared hopefully ahead at a lengthy separation, seeing only the impact it would have on their lovemaking. Little did they know the effect it would have on their lives.

ABOUT BLANCHE HOWARD AND CAROL SHIELDS

Blanche Howard is a novelist, playwright, and teller of short stories. Her works include Penelope's Way, Pretty Lady, The Manipulator, The Immortal Soul of Edwin Carlysle and Dance of the Self. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Carol Shields is the author of The Stone Diaries, which won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Canada's Governor General's Award. Her other novels and short-story collections include The Republic of Love, Happenstance, Swann, The Orange Fish, Various Miracles, The Box Garden, and Small Ceremonies (all available from Penguin). She lives in Winnipeg, Canada.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What makes a marriage? How does Jock and Chas's relationship fit into your definition? How does their marriage change over the course of their ten-month separation?
    
2. How important is sex to a marriage? What do you think Jocelyn means when she writes (in a letter that is never sent): "I felt known—that strange biblical term. It really does mean something after all." What has Austin's proximity given her that Chas could not?
    
3. Discuss both incidents of infidelity. What do you think made each spouse stray? How does Jocelyn's experience with Austin differ from Chas's experience with Davina and Sue? Is one more "guilty" than the other? Is it better that these incidents weren't confessed, or would honesty have been a better policy?
    
4. Do you think Jock and Chas are good parents? What effect does their separation have on their children?
    
5. At first, Jock and Charles both agree that letter writing will serve them well because of its economy. Later on, Charles says, "Writing these letters to you all year has had a curious effect on me, letting me know, in fact, what I'm thinking." How do these letters inform the writer as well as the recipient?
    
6. Consider the characteristics and limitations of the epistolary form. What effect does this genre have on the story and what the reader learns about the characters and plot? What happens to the point of view? What are the effects of two first-person narrators? How might this story be different if told through only one first-person narrator? An omniscient narrator?
    
7. How do Jock and Chas use their correspondence to express their feelings? How are their feelings better served through written, as opposed to oral, communication? Do you think Jock and Chas's relationship would have changed over the course of their separation if they had only communicated with each other via the telephone? Is it easier to ignore someone's written words, or their spoken ones?
    
8. What sorts of devices do the authors use to move the plot along and give the story its shape? Some things to consider: use of fax, references to telephone conversations, simultaneous letters, letters not sent, dates, etc.
    
9. Does Jock and Chas's preoccupation with their own achievements and dilemmas seem selfish to you? Do you think they would have pursued their respective challenges had there been no separation?
    
10. What will become of Jock and Chas's marriage? Has the "celibate season" made it weaker or stronger? How do you think each has changed over the course of ten months?