How is Johnny Ray important to Penelope and Charlotte? Have any music or film idols played a similar role in your life? Why does Penelope find America so fascinating? How has the loss of Archie affected the family? How is the house crucial?ĭescribe the relationship between Penelope and her mother. One of the most important characters in the novel is Magna, the immense old house.

Have you met people like Charlotte who have transformed your life? How does the voice of the narrator contribute to the story? Why does Penelope find Charlotte so fascinating? Would you have gone along with Charlotte’s invitation to share a cab? How does the time frame of the 1950s play an important role in the novel? How does The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets seem the perfect title to describe Eva Rice’s novel?ĭo you think that in the present day we have lost the “Art of Keeping Secrets?” When we got them, they weren’t what we expected at all. This is the story of what happened when we war babies grew up and needed answers. And missing people before they’ve even gone. Even hanging out with a movie producer and believing my brother Inigo could be the next Elvis Presley, and falling in love without realizing it. You see, meeting Charlotte made everything possible. At first I don’t think I knew it-after all, when I went to bed that night I was still living with my mother and brother in perpetual chaos in a crumbling estate we couldn’t afford to keep, but the next day, I realized that for the first time ever, I had my own life. Charlotte invited me home to tea with Aunt Clare and Harry, and from that moment on, everything changed. It all started on a perfectly ordinary afternoon in November.

This story is about what happened to me after I met Charlotte, and what happens when you say yes to everything, and how awkward it is when everyone falls in love with the wrong people.

The lost art of keeping secrets