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From the Author
The Lost Garden was inspired by events in the lives of my grandfathers.
My mother's father was a painter and a keen amateur gardener. For the last
few years of his life he lived on an English country estate that had been
converted into apartments for the elderly. While exploring the grounds of the
estate, he discovered a lost garden and spent his remaining time on earth
bringing this neglected garden back to life. Shortly after he died, at the
age of ninety-one, the estate was sold to condominium developers and the
whole complex, including the restored garden, was razed to the ground.
My father's father was an RAF bomber pilot. He went missing in the spring of
1941 during a night flight to Malta. His disappearance affected my father's
life profoundly and brought home to me the staggering human cost of war, not
just in terms of those who died in the service of war but also in the
continuing affect of their death on those who loved them and were waiting for
their safe return.
It was the combination of these two stories, of my two grandfathers, that
provided the framework for the writing of The Lost Garden.
Discussion
Questions
1. The author says that she was inspired by her grandfathers' lives to write
this novel. Indeed, the worlds of war and country gardens are the realms of
men, but the novel is about women and their experiences of those two worlds.
How does Humphreys explore the different experiences of men and women in the
book and in her own family's life?
2. At the beginning of the novel, the narrator says, "What is love if not
instant recognition? A moment of being truly equal to something." Gwen loves
London because of its familiarity and complexity. She is overwhelmed by both
Jane and Raley when she first meets them. Can she define her love for Raley
in the same way? Or for Jane? Does Gwen's ability to love other people change
over time, from her distant connection with Virginia Woolf to her moments of
closeness with Raley and Jane?
3. While David knits sweater after sweater for his fiancée in Newfoundland,
Jane's love for Andrew consumes her heart and her body. Is her love for
Andrew like David's love for his fiancée, or even like her love for David?
What does Gwen think of the nature of Jane's love?
4. Gwen's most valued possession is her copy of The Genus Rosa by Ellen
Willmott, given to her by her emotionally remote mother for her graduation.
Not only does Gwen love the thorough and scientific listings of roses, but
she also loves the physicality of the book. How does this book appeal to her
intellectual and emotional sides? Does this gift fit or redefine her
relationship with her mother? In the beginning, Gwen uses the weight of the
book to stand in for the weight of a lover in her bed. How does this parallel
her changing relationships with people?
5. Gwen also uses her reference books to discover the meanings of the plants
in the secret garden. Often the meanings derive from the way the plant grows
and dies: "Soon their heads will become too heavy for the thin, weed-like
stalks on which they rise with such hope, and the peonies will crash to the
ground in a wave of grief. They are too much for themselves, and soon they
know it." Besides giving clues to the original gardener, can these plants
symbolize the people around Gwen?
6. Homosexuality is an undercurrent throughout the book. Gwen, once she
recognizes it, sees it as one permutation of the complexity of love between
people. How does Gwen understand it in other people, or in herself?
7. Gwen seems to identify with the character of Lily Briscoe in To the
Lighthouse. Are Virginia Woolf, Lily Briscoe, and Gwen Davis alike in
their creative occupations? How is a book like a painting like a garden?
8. The dances and picnics between the Land Girls and the Canadian soldiers
distract them from the inevitable future. Is Raley right to allow his soldiers
to ignore the war, and their own possible deaths, while they are stationed at
the estate? What is it that the Land Girls are escaping? How do their
drawings on the blackout curtains help them deal with the war and their lives?
9. Gwen sees the past and the present intersecting in the secret garden, and
on the estate as a whole. When Raley falls asleep in what becomes Gwen's room
and the wooden arch catches fire above him, the white roses he sees are the
roses growing in the secret garden. A previous generation of gardeners and
laborers had created the garden and gone off to fight in World War I. How do
you see the past and present lives on the estate intertwining? What does it
mean for Gwen? For Raley?
10. The garden that Gwen discovers seems to have been untouched for years,
but she feels sure that someone created it out of a deep love and that she
will be able to unlock its secrets. She feels more entwined with the past as
she works to restore the garden. Is she right to tell Jane that she made it?
Why is Gwen so eager to keep her secret garden a secret? What kind of
ownership can she feel for it, while acknowledging that it is not the garden
she would have planted?
11. Gwen dedicates herself to debunking the estate's legend of the ghost that
steals chickens, and she discovers that the white flash is actually an
albino fox. The original creator of the secret garden trimmed one of the yew
trees near the garden into the shape of a fox head. Do you think this shared
secret between Gwen and the original gardener—both know that the "ghost"
is a fox—is a clue to the personality or identity of the creator of the
garden? Are there other parallels hinted at between Gwen and the original
gardener?
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