The Three Weissmanns of Westport: A Novel

The Three Weissmanns of Westport: A Novel

by Cathleen Schine
The Three Weissmanns of Westport: A Novel

The Three Weissmanns of Westport: A Novel

by Cathleen Schine

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Overview

A New York Times Best Seller
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice


Betty Weissmann has just been dumped by her husband of forty-eight years. Exiled from her elegant New York apartment by her husband's mistress, she and her two middle-aged daughters, Miranda and Annie, regroup in a run-down Westport, Connecticut, beach cottage. In Schine's playful and devoted homage to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the impulsive sister is Miranda, a literary agent entangled in a series of scandals, and the more pragmatic sister is Annie, a library director, who feels compelled to move in and watch over her capricious mother and sister. Schine's witty, wonderful novel The Three Weissmanns of Westport "is simply full of pleasure: the pleasure of reading, the pleasure of Austen, and the pleasure that the characters so rightly and humorously pursue….An absolute triumph" (The Cleveland Plain Dealer).


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780312680527
Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 02/01/2011
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 481,983
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

About The Author
Cathleen Schine is the author of The New Yorkers and The Love Letter, among other novels. She has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review.

Hometown:

New York, New York, and Venice, California

Date of Birth:

1953

Place of Birth:

Bridgeport, Connecticut

Education:

B.A., Barnard College, 1976

Read an Excerpt

     When Joseph Weissmann divorced his wife, he was seventy-eight years old and she was seventy-five. He announced his decision in the kitchen of their apartment on the tenth floor of a large, graceful Central Park West building built at the turn of the last century, the original white tiles of the kitchen still gleaming on the walls around them. Joseph, known as Joe to his colleagues at work but always called Joseph by his wife, said the words “irreconcilable differences,” and saw real confusion in his wife’s eyes.

     Irreconcilable differences? she said. Of course there are irreconcilable differences. What on earth does that have to do with divorce?

     In Joe’s case it had very little to do with divorce. In Joe’s case, as is so often the case, the reason for the divorce was a woman. But a woman was not, unsurprisingly, the reason he gave his wife.

     Irreconcilable differences?

     Betty was surprised. They had been married for forty-eight years. She was used to Joseph, and she was sure Joseph was used to her. But he would not be dissuaded. Their history was history to him.

     Joseph had once been a handsome man. Even now, he was straight, unstooped; his bald head was somehow distinguished rather than lacking, as if men, important men, aspired to a smooth shining pate. His nose was narrow and protruded importantly. His eyes were also narrow and, as he aged, increasingly protected by folds of skin, as if they were secrets.Women liked him. Betty had certainly liked him, once. He was quiet and unobtrusive, requiring only a large breakfast before he went to work, a large glass of Scotch when he arrived home, and a small, light dinner at 7:30 sharp.

     Over the years, Betty began to forget that she liked Joseph. The large breakfast seemed grotesque, the drink obsessive, the light supper an affectation. This happened in their third decade together and lasted until their fourth. Then, Betty noticed, Joseph’s routines somehow began to take on a comforting rhythm, like the heartbeat of a mother to a newborn baby. Betty was once again content, in love, even. They traveled to Tuscany and stood in the Chianti hills watching the swallows and the swift clouds of slate-gray rain approaching. They took a boat through the fjords of Norway and another through the Galápagos Islands. They took a train through India from one palace to the next, imagining the vanished Raj and eating fragrant delicate curries. They did all these things together. And then, all these things stopped.

     “Irreconcilable differences,” Joe said.

     “Oh, Joseph. What does that have to do with divorce?”

     “I want to be generous,” Joe said.

     Generous? she thought. It was as if she were the maid and she was being fired. Would he offer her two months’ salary?

     “You cannot be generous with what is mine,” she said.

     And the divorce, like horses in a muddy race, their sides frothing, was off and running.

Reading Group Guide

Just as Jane Austen delighted readers with wise heroines and surprising turns of fate, Cathleen Schine delivers a world of wry insight in each of her novels. With The Three Weissmanns of Westport, she brings Sense and Sensibility to modern-day Connecticut, where Betty Weissmann and her two middle-aged daughters have begun living as exiles. At age seventy-five, Betty has been dumped by her husband of nearly fifty years. He and his mistress have set up housekeeping in the sumptuous Manhattan apartment that Betty had called home for most of her adult life. Her daughter Miranda—a tough-as-nails literary agent—is facing bankruptcy after a series of scandals. Her other daughter, Annie, is smitten with the brother of her stepfather's mistress. Banding together against a slew of looming crises, Betty, Miranda, and Annie find refuge in a run-down beach cottage owned by a generous cousin. While Betty discovers a wealth of personal strength, her daughters discover an intriguing, aristocratic community—whose population includes the handsome actor Kit Maybank.

Raising timeless questions of the heart, The Three Weissmanns of Westport is an ideal selection for reading groups. The topics that follow are designed to enhance your experience as you discuss this captivating novel of reason versus romance.


1. How do Betty and her daughters relate to men? Do the three women have the same expectations about love and relationships?

2. How do the Weissmann women define "home"? What does the Manhattan apartment mean to them? What do their reactions to the Westport cottage say about their personalities? Would you have enjoyed living there?

3. In Sense and Sensibility, Mrs. Dashwood does her best to help her family thrive despite dwindling fortunes. What challenges do women still face in such situations, even with the cultural changes that have taken place since Jane Austen was writing?

4. Which cad is worse: Schine's Kit Maybank or Austen's John Willoughby? If Miranda could meet Marianne, what advice would the two characters give each other?

5. The fact that Miranda and Annie are not Joseph's biological children also mirrors Austen's plot. Would Joseph have handled the divorce differently if the girls had been his biological daughters?

6. Is Frederick a good father to Gwen and Evan? What stokes Annie's attraction to him throughout the novel?

7. Is Betty very much like her relatives? Which of your family members would you turn to if you were in her situation?

8. What accounts for the similarities and differences between Annie and Miranda? Are both women simply driven by their temperaments, or have they shaped each other's personalities throughout their lives? How does their relationship compare to yours with your own siblings?

9. Schine's work often blends humor with misfortune, such as Miranda's undoing by authors who turn out to be plagiarists and extreme fabricators. What other aspects of the novel capture the tragicomic way life unfolds?

10. Why is it so hard for Joseph to understand why his stepdaughters are mad at him? Why does he prefer Felicity to Betty? Discuss the revelations about Amber. In what way is her romantic situation similar to Felicity's?

11. Ultimately, how do the Weissmanns reconcile sense with sensibility? Who are the book's most rational characters? Who is the most emotional?

12. What makes Roberts remarkable (eventually)? Who are the overlooked "characters" in your life story?

13. What aspects of the ending surprised you the most? What had you predicted for Betty, and for Leanne? Do the novel's closing scenes reflect an Austen ending?

14. Does the storytelling style in The Three Weissmanns of Westport remind you of Schine's other portraits of love? What makes the Weissmanns' story unique?

Reading Group Guide written by Amy Root / Amy Root's Wordshop, Inc.

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