The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf (37 page)

Her steps slowed. She looked up at him.

Peter was studying her as though she were a piece of vellum or an illuminated page; something authentic he was afraid to touch.

“We might do almost anything at all,” he said, “and I’d be happy. Go out, stay in. Eat. Drink. Make love—”

And as he took her in his arms, the great ghostly barn owl—
Life! Life! Life!
—dipped its wings over the Little Virgin, and soared away over the White Garden.

A Note from the Author

LAWRENCE BLOCK ONCE FAMOUSLY SAID THAT fiction writing is nothing more than “telling lies for fun and profit.” I have a habit of making things up, quite often about people who lived perfectly good lives of their own, people who would be furious to think they were the objects of my embellishment—Jane Austen, Queen Victoria, Virginia Woolf. But then these people, whose every word and act already seemed part of the public domain, died. And my imagination had its way with them.

The White Garden
is a case in point. The idea for it took hold during a particularly bleak period in my life when I seemed to be writing only about death and violence. People I loved were dying, too. My mother began her slow descent into the terrible losses of Alzheimer’s disease—she remained present, but increasingly unrecognizable. One night, her old self came to me in a dream, as it often does, and my aunt—a horticulture judge who loved gardens—was with her. My aunt had been gone for years, but the two of them were arm in arm, companionable and chatty as always, and they were intending to walk around Sissinghurst.
Come out into the garden, Francie
, they said; and so I followed them into the White Garden.

There’s something restorative in writing about growing things when the world is dying around you. I imagine that Vita Sackville-West understood this, and that it is one of the reasons she survived so many upheavals—and perhaps a reason that Virginia Woolf could not. In thinking about these two women, and their relationship to such things as words, and flowers, and violence, I was riveted by a singular moment in their long mutual friendship—the moment it was broken forever, the moment they literally fell out of touch on the banks of the River Ouse. The three weeks that elapsed between Virginia Woolf’s disappearance and the discovery of her body must have been difficult ones for everyone who loved her, Vita in particular. That period of silence, of unknowing, was tantalizing to me; I began to consider an alternative in which things were different, the inversion of what history believes to be true.

The White Garden
is fiction, all the same. I hope its readers will enjoy exploring the possibilities it suggests, and forgive its inevitable license.

Anyone wishing to learn more about Sissinghurst should immediately obtain a copy of Adam Nicolson’s book by that name
(Sissinghurst
, HarperCollins U.K., 2008), the most heartfelt, poignant, and lyric tribute to home that anyone could possibly write.

Francine Mathews
aka Stephanie Barron

Denver, Colorado
July 29, 2009

READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION FOR

The White Garden

by Stephanie Barron

1.
The White Garden
is about uncovering long-buried truths. Is this a noble cause, or do you believe that the past is not meant to be dug up?

2. Have you ever discovered something about your ancestors after their death?

3. Why do you think Jock hid his secret from even his wife and granddaughter?

4. Who do you think the journal ultimately “belongs” to?

5. Out of all authors, living and dead, whose journal would you most want to read and why?

6. Both Virginia and Jock take pains to write their stories down. What power do you think is given to writing words down?

7. Who in the book do you believe is responsible for Virginia’s death? Do various characters share responsibility?

8. Do you agree with Peter in his criticism of the idea that “writing is akin to madness”?

9. Does Jo ultimately fulfill her goal of learning more about her grandfather?

10. What do you think can be revealed about a person through how they tend a garden? What do we learn about Jock? About Vita? About Imogen?

11. Do you think Grayson truly loves Jo? Do you see parallels between how he treats Jo and how Leonard treated Virginia, per the way Margaux describes him?

12. Do you think being a part of the immensely talented Bloomsbury group contributed to Virginia’s death? Would Virginia have been healthier as an “outsider” artist? Was it a benefit or a detriment that Vanessa was also part of the same group?

13. To whom does the White Garden mean the most? What does it mean to that character?

About the Author

STEPHANIE BARRON is the author of the stand-alone historical suspense novel
A Flaw in the Blood
, as well as the bestselling Jane Austen mystery series. As Francine Mathews, she is the author of
The Cutout, The Secret Agent, Blown
, and
The Alibi Club
. She lives near Denver, Colorado, where she is at work on her next novel in the Jane Austen series,
Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron
.

The White Garden
is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a setting in historical reality. Other names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

A Bantam Book Trade Paperback Original

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

RANDOM HOUSE READERS CIRCLE & DESIGN is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barron, Stephanie.
The white garden : a novel of Virginia Woolf / Stephanie Barron.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90684-4
1. Woolf, Virginia, 1882–1941—Fiction. 2. Women authors, English—20th
century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.A8357 W47 2009
813′.54—dc22 2009020464

www.randomhousereaderscircle.com

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Table of Contents

Cover

Other Books By This Author

Dedication

28 March 1941: PROLOGUE