Agnes and Polly’s friendship rang very true to me. My mom had a best friend who was like a sister to her (we called her “Aunt”). They remained very close until their deaths in their 90’s. It was a 70 year friendship, at least. My mom did not have a sister. Maybe Polly and Agnes filled that gap for each other in a similar way (since Elspeth died young).
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I have a very close friend whom I have known since we were infants in our prams. We are still very close and in touch. My kids use a courtesy title of auntie for her.
The other close friend I met when we were both new moms. We are very close and the kids are as well. Again she is auntie to my kids.
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How do others feel about the chapters about Heidi’s treatment at the mental health facility ?
While an important time in our country’s approach to mental health, I thought Dark tried to tackle too many issues, including those segments.
I guess that’s when I might have put down the iPad, would never throw it, and fatigued of going in so many directions
It seemed disjointed, even though it protrayed childhood trauma and why Heidi didn’t remember her past.
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The book had four male points of view, which all got cut by the end of the editing process.
So who were the four males? My guess: Robert Circumstance, Dick, Virgil (I’d like to know what the heck he was thinking) … and maybe Polly’s son James or Archie Lee.
In my humble opinion, I think the book is most likely stronger with the four male points of view omitted.
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I was torn about those scenes. In some ways, Heidi seemed neglected–alone in a room, unresponsive, unkempt (Maud having to ask the staff to wash Heidi’s hair!) – yet the staff seemed kind and concerned. I don’t know anyone who had depression to such a degree, so can’t speak to the accuracy of Heidi’s condition, treatment or recovery.
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Truth be told, I didn’t really enjoy the whole Heidi thing. Yes, people can have terrible depression, be resistant to treatment, and need ECT, but I don’t know that it is ever caused by an experience. Many deep depressions are idiopathic – ie, cause unknown. I also feel that, at age 4, Nan wouldn’t have allowed her first 4 years be ignored by her new caretaker; she would have been chirping about her experiences, asking when she was going to see Agnes again, etc. Even if her new caretaker told her never to mention that stuff again, she still would absolutely remember it all. Just my two cents. I really felt like Dark was trying to be too clever with the whole Heidi thing.
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I stick by my earlier comment (quoting myself):
Nan was told from the beginning that her experience hadn’t happened and only Agnes knew the truth. Agnes told no one that she found Nan in the cottage with her deceased father and Karen. If Nan chattered otherwise (and she was still somewhat delayed along those lines) it wouldn’t have been regarded as a real experience, which also would have further messed her up.
And remember Nan trusted Agnes explicitly so if Agnes said it was all a dream then it was.
Agnes meant well but veered in the absolute wrong direction. Umm … maybe meant well … as she was also in cover her own a-- mode. If Nan had remained at Fellowship Point rather than being whisked away, all might have been better.
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@AnAsmom quoted this:
Polly had lived her life in manners, and over time had boiled her philosophy down to one precept: in every minute make the world beautiful.
I’m guessing the author was familiar with one of one of my favorite children’s books, Miss Rumphius by Cooney. It’s about an old woman who lives by the sea in Maine and plants lupines to make the world beautiful.
I’m glad to hear that others had mixed reviews of this book, because I really wanted to like it, but some of it didn’t work for me, particularly the long journal entries addressed to Elspeth. all that buildup and then the big reveal was…Agnes had a crush on Virgil?
On the other hand, I loved the older women friendship parts. Since Covid began I’ve been having regular zooms with some high school girlfriends. We’ve had very different lives and don’t have that much in common, really, but we understand each other in a way that other people just can’t, even though over the years our friendships have waxed and waned with our lives (though without any angry breaks like Polly and Agnes).
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Dark would be the first to admit that she was trying to be too clever – in a way, that’s what she was going for. She said in one of the interviews above that her inspiration was the 19th century novel, with (her words) “the plots, the subplots, the twists and turns.” It just didn’t always work seamlessly here.
My thought is that a healthy four-year old would remember many experiences, but a traumatized four-year old would not (unless encouraged to, through therapy). Although it’s a different type of trauma, think of all the repressed memory cases there are with sexual abuse.
The relative who took Nan in probably wanted to do right by her by erasing her tragic past, but in the end she wasn’t doing Nan any favors. I had to remind myself that Nan’s childhood was in the 60’s, with different viewpoints on psychology / therapy.
Perfect! If I were to ever tackle Fellowship Point again, it would be to find all the literary “Easter eggs.”
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The author mentions lupines more than once, I too, thought of Miss Rumphius.
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Yes, there are repressed memories of sexual abuse, but Nan was happy on Friendship Point and especially with Agnes. There’d be no need for her to repress those memories.
Anyway – enough about Heidi!!
True. I don’t fully understand how repressed memory works. Can a deeply traumatic incident block out everything from a certain period – the good and the bad?
I think the letters to Elspeth were Alice Elliott Dark once again trying to channel 19th century novels. I didn’t mind them. What really didn’t work for me was Virgil. I just didn’t understand what Agnes saw in that hapless man. If the author had fleshed him out more and given the two a little chemistry, I could maybe have gotten on board. I would have written out Karen entirely. If Dark wanted tragedy, there could have been other routes that would have felt less forced.
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Yes, Karen did not work at all for me. I thought at first she might be more like Maud, the friend Agnes didn’t know she needed. Polly was (except for their fight) too nice, and didn’t push Agnes intellectually. I would have thought someone would have noticed Virgil and Karen spending a lot of time together. That whole part of the novel seemed so forced.
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Revealing sensitive or intimate information via letters is a common literary device. Mr. Darcy, anyone? 
Or Captain Wentworth for that matter. It’s also in Hardy, Dickens, Brontë, Tolstoy – and used in books by contemporary writers that are set in earlier eras, such as Possession.
I recently read Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy. Where a century ago the central romance would have been told through letters, here the episotolary portions are in the form of texts and emails. It’s a light and silly book, but my point is that due to modern technology and social evolution, something has definitely been lost in the use of this particular literary device.
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This is a pretty even-handed review that has some pointed comments similar to what we have already discussed: “Simple Truths”: Alice Elliott Dark, Fellowship Point – Novel Readings
And this is a glowing review — I know we haven’t fully “glowed” here, but it’s a nice take from someone who loved the novel: Hateship, loveship, friendship in ‘Fellowship Point’ - The Boston Globe
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@Mary13 ,
Mary13, you’ve selected reviews with positive and not positive reviews, in my Goodreads review I mention this would be a good book discussion for the exact reason, there are varying points of view of this book.
In my good reads review I mention how I connected to the sense of place dark writes about,
Philadelphia - proximity, explored it thoroughly
Rittenhouse square- many hours spent there
Quakers - know some personally
Main Line Philaldpehia - famous, think The Philadelphia story, with Katharine Hepburn
Bryn Mawr and Penn- icons
Maine - thank you Elizabeth Strout for painting vivid pictures of Maine
So there’s that …familiarity that drew me in.
The last line of the book strongly resonated with me, and I will remember for long while,
A few years ago a friend and I took an adult continuing education English class- taught by a former high school English teacher.
In one class discussion she posed a question …………
If you had to choose…….would it be
“ to be loved, or
to have loved someone “
My friend turned to me immediately and said “to be loved” !!!
I thought about this , it’s a very interesting question.
And, Dark made this choice for Agnes,
“ I have loved someone “ …… period,
She didn’t add, I “have loved someone” , and “ have been loved “ ……
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/03/books/review/fellowship-point-alice-elliott-dark.html
The novel’s resolution — unexpected and yet, once we get there, satisfying and inevitable — is handled with such skill in its temporal layering, I had to tip my writerly hat over and over to Dark. What first appears to be the story of two old ladies in Maine turns out to be a sophisticated inquiry into the course of female lives, with time as an instrument of revelation, folding in on itself, opening out, revealing the multilayered histories of both Polly and Agnes as a means of showing a kind of existential truth: “Nothing owes its existence to something. And something owes its existence to nothing.” When Polly tells her husband this, early in the novel, he brushes it aside as too simple and intuitive to be taken seriously. His brusque dismissal is as telling as her excitement.
“Fellowship Point” is a novel rich with social and psychological insights, both earnest and sly, big ideas grounded in individual emotions, a portrait of a tightly knit community made up of artfully drawn, individual souls. In the end, as Agnes sums it up, “There wasn’t time for withholding, not in this short life when you were only given to know a few people, and to have a true exchange with one or two.”
In other words, fellowship is the point. Only connect.
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@Mary13 wrote:
What really didn’t work for me was Virgil. I just didn’t understand what Agnes saw in that hapless man. If the author had fleshed him out more and given the two a little chemistry, I could maybe have gotten on board. I would have written out Karen entirely.
I agree! How could Agnes ever get over Virgil’s extreme neglect of Nan? Even after he cleaned up and Agnes started seeing him differently and recognizing his love for Nan, Agnes took over a lot of “mothering” duties. So while she couldn’t relate to the self-denying devotion of Polly to her husband and family, didn’t Agnes do something similar with Virgil and Nan? But she didn’t get anything back: Virgil fell in love with someone else (and then died) and Nan was taken away from her. That was incredibly sad,
And what did Virgil and Karen see in each other? That came out of nowhere.
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I agree. Perhaps the male perspectives that were omitted in editing would have helped us (?)
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Virgil was a broken soul, don’t recall what happened to Nans mother.
Both Nan and Virgil needed Agnes and she became a mother figure to Nan and Virgil came along as a package - instant family.
Wasn’t Virgil kind of a hunk under all the unkept hair and clothes ?
Plus a writer !
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