The Fall of a Sparrow Reading Group Guide

by Robert Hellenga

The Barnes & Noble ReviewThe Fall of the Sparrow by Robert Hellenga is a proud testament to the strength and resilience of the human spirit. Like his critically acclaimed debut novel, The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of the Sparrow links the American Midwest and Italy. Yet while the The Sixteen Pleasures explores a young girl's sexual awakening, The Fall of the Sparrow offers a powerful tale about one family's struggle to heal itself after the tragic death of its eldest daughter. This powerful novel demonstrates how, in the author's words, "it's not the great stories that give meaning to the little ones; it's the other way round." At the heart of the novel is Alan "Woody" Woodhull, an enthusiastic blues guitar-playing classics professor at St. Clair, a small midwestern college. His beloved daughter, Cookie, was killed in Italy in a neofascist terrorist bombing in 1980. When the story begins, seven years after the bombing, Woody is painfully His wife, Hannah, has left him and entered a convent, and his two surviving daughters have moved on and left home. He finds himself at the crossroads of grief, convinced that life has dished him all the lessons there are to learn, yet unable to lose the hope that something else must be in store for him. Two events send Woody into a life-altering the arrest of Angela Starppalfelci, the woman who placed the bomb in the train station, and an intense sexual affair with one of his students. The fallout from these events irrevocably changes the course of his life, forcing him to abandon his teaching job and leavetheUnited States to attend the terrorist's trial. As his vita nuova begins, Woody gradually emerges from his sorrow and is awakened to new, promising love in Italy. The character of Woody is an "impressively well-rounded and endearingly decent human being" ( Kirkus Reviews ), and readers will come to care about him as if he were a family member. A blues aficionado (Woody sings and is partial to National Steel guitars), he revels in le cose buone della vita — including Greek, Latin, and Persian fables, the hooting of owls, and all things Italian, including spaghetti carbonara. The Fall of the Sparrow has already received rave reviews. Check out what Publishers Weekly had to A wealth of factors...make Hellenga's second novel resourceful storytelling skills, a lightly ironic sense of humor, a powerful moral vision and plangent insights into the classic theme of suffering and redemption.... Hellenga weaves the stands of his plot so adroitly that each surprising twist seems inevitable.... Hellenga's humane voice, his ability to illuminate the profundities in life in scenes of domestic relationships as well as those set on a larger stage, give this memorable novel powerful emotional appeal and literary stature.

Paperback

Published August 1, 1998

About the author

Robert Hellenga was an American novelist, essayist, and short story author.
His eight novels included The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, Philosophy Made Simple, The Italian Lover, Snakewoman of Little Egypt, The Confessions of Frances Godwin and Love, Death, & Rare Books. In addition to these works, he wrote a novella, Six Weeks in Verona, along with a collection of short stories in The Truth About Death and Other Stories. Hellenga also published scholarly essays and literary or travel essays in various venues, including The National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler, and The Gettysburg Review.
Hellenga was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up in Milwaukee and Three Oaks, Michigan. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan and his graduate work at the Queen’s University of Belfast, the University of North Carolina, and Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton and began teaching English literature at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1968. In 1973–74 he was co-director of the ACM Seminar in the Humanities at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and in 1982–83 he directed the ACM Florence programs in Florence, Italy. He also worked and studied in Bologna, Verona, and Rome. He was distinguished writer in residence and professor emeritus at Knox College. Hellenga was married and had three daughters.
Hellenga received awards for his fiction from the Illinois Arts Council and from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Sixteen Pleasures received The Society of Midland Authors Award for Fiction published in 1994. The Fall of a Sparrow was included in the Los Angeles Times list of the "Best Fiction of 1998" and the Publishers Weekly list of the "Best 98 Books." Snakewoman of Little Egypt, was included in The Washington Post's list of "The Best Novels of 2010" and Kirkus Reviews' list of "2010 Best Fiction: The Top 25." The audio version of Snakewoman was a 2011 Audie Award Winner for Literary Fiction. The Confessions of Frances Godwin received The Society of Midland Authors' Award for fiction published in 2014.
Hellenga died of neuroendocrine cancer on July 18, 2020, at his home in Galesburg, Illinois.