9. How does Hank take up the work of emotional excavation and investigation on his mother, perhaps work she’s unable to do herself? What does this suggest about our abilities to confront our own pasts with clear eyes?
10. What do all of the characters’ secrets, revealed to us gradually throughout the book, have in common? How do the characters differ in the steps they have to take to discover their own truths?
11. Although Celine’s role as a mother is a paramount focus of the book, what did you also take away from reading about the complicated role of fathers in their children’s lives? Do you think that Celine or Hank has more in common with Gabriela in this sense?
12. When Celine considers Paul’s circumstances for disappearing and leaving Gabriela, she displays a great deal of compassion—something that’s key to why she’s a good investigator. How do you think she’s been able to channel that in spite of all that she experienced as a child?
13. The book makes the case that the world feels different after the 9/11 attacks, and also uses the grandeur of nature to indicate the smallness of humanity. Did you feel at the end of the book that ultimately humanity’s preservation was worth the effort despite these perspectives? What do those scales of comparison illustrate about how we understand our own power in the universe? Which characters are most accepting of that balance in the novel?
14. What sacrifices does Celine make for her clients, especially for Paul in regard to his involvement in the Chilean coup? Do you think they’re grateful for what she does?
15. Think about your own family and how you have dealt, individually and collectively, with secrets and difficult times. How would things have been different for your family if the losses Paul and Gabriela faced transpired for you? Could you empathize with either or both of them?
Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove
Nickolas Butler, Shotgun Lovesongs
Catherine Lacey, Nobody Is Ever Missing
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You
Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
What’s next on your reading list?
ALSO BY PETER HELLER FICTION
The Painter
The Dog Stars
Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave
The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals
Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River
Set Free in China: Sojourns on the Edge
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Peter Heller
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Heller, Peter, 1959–author.
Title: Celine : a novel / Peter Heller.
Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016026943 (print) | LCCN 2016034200 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451493897 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780451493903 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women private investigators—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Thrillers. | FICTION / Family Life. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3608.E454 C45 2017 (print) | LCC PS3608.E454 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at
Ebook ISBN 9780451493903
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead is coincidental, except for Celine and Pete and Hank, who are based on real people. There is a lot of Celine’s family history in this novel. Much of it is true, and some of it is imagined.
Cover image: CSA Images/Getty Images
Cover design by Kelly Blair
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