The Lombards comprise a sprawling, complicated family, and the relationships among them are even more complex. How is the concept of family portrayed throughout the book?
What effect does making Frankie the narrator have on your perception of the plot?
One might describe Frankie as being both surprisingly mature and immature for her age. Why do you think this is? How else would you describe Frankie’s character? Use examples from the text to support your claims.
How does a rural setting lend itself to this sort of familial, community-based story? What role does the landscape, which Jane Hamilton describes vividly, play in the Lombards’ tale?
In many ways, this novel can be viewed as a coming-of-age story. What are some key moments in which Frankie “comes of age”?
The question of who will inherit the farm is one of the main conflicts in this book. Do you think that the matter of inheritance is emblematic of some other issue?
The relationship between Gloria and the Lombards is very complicated. What do you think prevents genuine feelings between the children and Gloria? Between Nellie and Gloria?
“We weren’t just bored with the world; we were bored with ourselves, or we were hardly in our selves anymore. It was hard to tell what was going on. Maybe, if we could remember one little trick about how we used to be, we could get there, get back, as if we ourselves were a country we’d left.” How does this quote relate to some of the book’s main themes?
Frankie often has incredibly strong feelings and opinions toward those around her. Analyze Frankie’s relationships with other key characters, such as William, her father, Amanda, and May Hill.
How does the bond between Frankie and her brother, William, evolve throughout this book?
How does Frankie view love? Does it change throughout the course of the book? If so, how?
What do you think makes the Lombards “excellent”?
A Conversation with Jane Hamilton
What was your initial conception of The Excellent Lombards? Has it changed much?
I wrote many versions of this novel. I have a friend who writes crime fiction. She is often understandably shocked at the inefficiency of my process. “You had another failure?” she once lovingly said to me, when I was explaining that yet another version of the novel hadn’t worked out. At the start I knew the situation of the orchard family but I kept superimposing ridiculous plots onto the basic structure. For instance, there were several versions involving a nun and the lesbians in the neighborhood. The nun drowns in the marsh. I read Catholicism for Dummies and went to Mass. That version was six hundred pages.
How did your own experience of living and working in a Wisconsin orchard farmhouse inform the content of this book?
I certainly couldn’t have written this novel if I hadn’t lived the life I live. I suppose that could be said for any novel in relation to the novelist, but for this book and my life that statement is especially true. My business associates have for some time been suggesting that I write a memoir about my farm life, but I can’t seem to muster enthusiasm for nonfiction. The pleasure and requirement of writing a novel is living in an invented world. There is the basic material that is the novelist’s life, the marble, clay, the canvas, and as the work progresses the invention becomes entirely separate from whatever real-life events or situation inspired it. So this book lives in an altogether different plane from my own life and times.
What was your greatest challenge in writing The Excellent Lombards?