In chapter four of The Findlings, the reader is given the first glimpse of Bibi interacting with music. In that chapter, she has more important things on her mind, but Chopin’s "First Ballade" streams through her car’s radio, to her distraction. This piece is important to the entire narrative because it is one of several elements working to break open Bibi’s suppressed memories

 What’s true in the novel The Findlings?

Good question to ask me. My four-word answer: It’s a novel. (By that I mean: It is NOT a memoir.)

But it’s still a good question, especially since lots of you know I found both my birth parents’ families in 1981 and 1991. In fact, some of you were there when I was looking for one or the other, and when I was coming to grips with the ramifications of it all. You know the story. You supported me in ways that shaped my feelings about humanity; you were that wonderful.
Still, it’s a novel that is based on one real event. 

There's a lot of music in The Findlings, and not all of you will recognize every piece by name. So here's some help.

For most of The Findlings, torment understandably festers in the hugely talented Victor’s mind, and, dare I say, his soul. So the music that came to me that would best underscore the state of his mind and life came from composers ranging from Wagner and Schumann to Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

Chapter one ("Her Children were Leaves") sees Victor choosing Wagner’s "Pilgrim’s Chorus" (Tannhauser) to be the soundtrack of his life. It cues the reader to know he is on some form of journey or quest. Here is:

Photo: MemphisFlyer's article about Ronnie Grisanti's Memphis Restaurant.

   In chapter two of The Findlings, Bibi makes Elfo's Special for her family's fated Saturday night dinner.
   My idea for having Bibi make this meal sprang from a cookbook I got for Christmas in 1974: Mary and Vincent Price's A Treasury of Great Recipes. I adored this cookbook because, besides the fact that the recipes weren't all that hard to make, I knew that whatever I made it would be a hit.  

For those of you who plan to read and discuss The Findlings in a book-club setting, you might consider using the following questions as conversation starters:

1. What were some of your initial assumptions about the various characters, and how did those assumptions evolve as your read on?
2. What role did truth and dishonesty play in the lives of the various characters?
3. Whose side did you find yourself taking in chapter two’s family dinner?
4. Why do you think the author chose to have a disembodied narrator who was on a mission?