Contemporary Authors

• 90 Days to Your Novel: A Day-by-Day Plan for Outlining & Writing Your Book Writer's Digest Books (Cincinnati, OH), 2010
• The Guineveres Flatiron (New York, NY), 2016

1. The Guineveres https://lccn.loc.gov/2016016414 Domet, Sarah, author. The Guineveres / Sarah Domet. First Edition. New York : Flatiron Books, 2016. 342 pages ; 25 cm PS3604.O456 G85 2016 ISBN: 9781250086617 (hardcover) 2. 90 days to your novel : a day-by-day plan for outlining & writing your book https://lccn.loc.gov/2010022095 Domet, Sarah. 90 days to your novel : a day-by-day plan for outlining & writing your book / Sarah Domet. 1st ed. Cincinnati, Ohio : Writer's Digest Books, c2010. 281 p. ; 22 cm. PN3365 .D57 2010 ISBN: 9781582979977 (alk. paper)1582979979 (alk. paper)

• Deep South Magazine - http://deepsouthmag.com/2016/11/07/the-guineveres/

  Inside ‘The Guineveres’ With Sarah Domet
  November 7, 2016Erin Z. Bass 0 Comments0
  Four girls who share the same name search for “home” inside the sequestered walls of a convent in Sarah Domet’s debut novel.

  Enter to win a copy of the book HERE.

  51kMOqzohlLSarah Domet’s first fiction novel The Guineveres opens with a chapter titled “The Assumption” about four girls all named Guinevere who are plotting to run away from a convent. Left by their parents for one reason or another, the Guineveres are bound together by their birth names and their stories.

  With praise from Kevin Wilson, who calls it “some kind of wonderful miracle,” and Brock Clarke, who describes the book as a “revelation” similar to Jeffrey Engenides’ The Virgin Suicides, The Guineveres is one of the most anticipated books for fall. And while Domet certainly draws on her Catholic upbringing and the rites and rituals of the Catholic Church, she says she never intended to write a novel about faith.

  “I always intended this book to be a coming of age story about four girls and their friendship and the family they form against the backdrop of the Catholic Church,” she says. Indeed the Guineveres—who go by Vere, Win, Ginny and Gwen—have formed their own family inside the convent. Isolated from the outside world and longing for the families who left them behind, the girls see four comatose soldiers who arrive at the sick ward as their ticket out.

  In a novel that sneaks up on you with its subtle grace, Sarah Domet weaves the story of these four girls with that of the heroic lives of the female saints. We interviewed her by phone to ask about her inspiration for The Guineveres, how moving to the South has influenced her work, her writing process (she’s also the author of 90 Days To Your Novel) and how becoming a mother has changed her idea of girlhood.

  Chat with Sarah Domet on Twitter this Friday, Nov. 11, from 1-2 CST using the hashtag #southernlit. We’ll also be giving away a copy of The Guineveres for Literary Friday!

  On being raised Catholic …

  SD: When you have the memory of a Catholic girlhood, there are a lot of interesting and unusual stories that arise out of that experience. When I would explain to friends or colleagues certain things that we did, like being shipped away to these religious retreats and our watches taken away, they’d think that’s a little strange, but to me that was part of growing up. I was always interested in setting a novel in that particular kind of environment, because I think it can be really challenging for young girls to grow up within this strict and rigid and confined environment. I was always interested in the saint stories and was fascinated with them as a kid. As I got older, a friend gave me a copy of Lives of the Saints in graduate school and I read them, this time with the perspective of many years and feeling like an outsider. I couldn’t help but think these were the stories I grew up with, and they seemed much more complicated to me. Male saints were going out and founding abbeys and displaying their faith in a very public way, while female saints seemed to be left to suffer in their bodies. The only way they could display their saintfulness was by inflicting suffering upon themselves. I thought I could really connect the stories of the saints and the suffering of the saints to that of young girls.

  The Guineveres resolved to face adversity with grace, as the greatest of the saints had done. We’d recently learned during Morning Instruction that Saint Marguerite had survived Iroquois attacks, fires, and plagues, and that Saint Barbara’s own father had locked her in a tower for years. Still, we couldn’t help but feel more than defeated.” – “Penance”
  What’s in the name Guinevere?

  SD: I knew I was going to have multiple characters with the same name and would carve out nicknames for them. I needed a name that was versatile enough to be able to do that. I was one of seven or eight Sarahs in my class all through school. I wanted a name that had historical weight to it—it’s not a direct nod to the historical Guinevere but a nod to the historical weight of it adds to the mythical component of the novel.

  Convents as safe havens …

  SD: I remember my mom telling me that she remembered when she was a young girl and had her first job and for some reason they took her on a tour of a home for young, unwed mothers who were pregnant. It was sort of a convent where these nuns had taken in these women. It seems like a scene out of a science fiction movie or dystopia where all these women are being gathered under the roof of nuns to shield them from culture. One of the reasons I didn’t want to depict the clergy and nuns and priest as innately negative forces in the lives of these girls is because I know that historically, nuns in particular, had a history of providing a safe haven for young women. There are plenty of other novels or films or works of art that have this more stereotypical view of nuns as all stern and super strict. My goal was to make the nuns certainly strict and driven by the rules of Catholicism, but also really human, maybe even flawed themselves.

  We turned our thoughts to Thanksgiving past, to our memories of sitting around white-clothed tables, some of us at least, the way we ate too much turkey and dressing and corn pudding and pearled onions and creamed spinach, then sat around talking about how much we had eaten. Inside the convent, gluttony was a sin, but outside, gluttony was the purpose of the holiday, the whole point. Didn’t the Sisters understand how the world operated?” – “Thanksgiving”
  On moving to Savannah, Georgia …

  SD: My husband and I moved to the South in 2010—I was teaching college at the time. Then in July of 2015, we moved to Savannah. Certainly living in the South has influenced my sense of writing and where I am in terms of how my geography is. Something I’ve always noticed and loved about Southern writers is there seems to be this almost anxiety of place, how do you both embrace and question the legacies that are more complicated? It got me thinking as I was writing: At the core, this novel is a coming of age story about girls, but also a meditation about home and what home means. It took moving to the South for me to think about some of these issues. I had never left the Midwest, so my meditation on home and place generated some inspiration for the novel.

  Can you really write a novel in 90 days?

  SD: When I was doing book events for 90 Days [her first book], one of the first questions was, ‘Have you written a novel in 90 days?’ At the time I hadn’t. I had done a lot of teaching so I felt capable of writing this book. I had to write 90 Days as a process of thinking through my process of writing this novel. I was really adamant about writing that first draft in 90 days, and I did write the first draft in 90 days. It essentially is similar in plot, but it was very different from the novel it ended up being. I spent several years revising it. Most revisions came even after it was purchased by my editor. I was revising when I was nine months pregnant still and finished the final version two days before I gave birth to my daughter. I had two deadlines pushing up, and because I knew I was having a daughter, I would think this is the only time in my life I’m ever going to be able to protect her from suffering—and there’s a lot of suffering in the novel. I couldn’t help but think what kind of stories would I want my daughter to hear. That was an interesting moment for me as a writer and soon-to-be mother.

  On her next book …

  SD: I got a two-book deal. The novel I’m currently working on, my editor has not yet read it. It’s set against the last two appearances of Halley’s Comet in 1987 and 1910 and follows the lives of two women on the brink of personal disaster.

• Kimmery Martin - https://www.kimmerymartin.com/single-post/2016/10/13/An-Interview-with-Sarah-Domet-author-of-The-Guineveres

  An Interview with Sarah Domet, author of The Guineveres
  October 13, 2016

  I'll confess to a moment of jealousy here. I'm a soon-to-be-debut-novelist, and like every other writer on earth, I'd love to have written a literary masterpiece, replete with cultural significance and poetic prose and inescapable gravitas, the kind of book that causes critics to swoon and readers to yelp incoherent but excited praise at book clubs. This is certainly what I had in mind for my own book, but it turns out I am not quite that kind of writer.

  Sarah Domet, on the other hand, is that kind of writer. She landed one of the most lauded editors in the business, who described The Guineveres, Sarah's debut novel, in such glowing terms at this year's BookExpo America I nearly passed out from anticipation before I got ahold of a copy. Despite the fact that she spent last week as a powerless hurricane evacuee from her Southern home, Sarah was kind enough to answer questions for me about her book.

  First: The Guineveres. It's the story of four girls with the same name—nicknamed Win, Ginny, Gwen and Vere—who find themselves captive in a convent, subject to the strict ministrations of the nuns of the Sisters of the Supreme Adoration. Ginny is artistic and rebellious, Win is strong but secretive, Gwen is gorgeous and bold. And Vere, the center of their circle, is innocent and faithful, struggling to reconcile her beliefs with the deprivations she’s encountered in her young life. Each of them arrived at the convent abandoned by their families under different but equally heartbreaking circumstances, but they each hold the same longing: to be free and to be loved. They quickly band together, forming a fierce alliance. After an escape-attempt-gone-wrong, the Guineveres find themselves assigned to nursing-assistant duty in the convent’s sick ward, a job that offers unforeseen and startling avenues of possibility after the arrival of a group of comatose soldiers. Do these sleeping, mysterious men represent the Guineveres' chance at new lives?

  It’s been a long time since I’ve cried at the end of a novel. But Domet’s story is so riveting and dreamy and affecting that I found myself unable to stop thinking about it after I finished it. Her prose is beautiful but also wholly convincing: never once did I doubt that I was in the convent too, alongside Vere and the others as they record the remarkable events shaping the Guineveres into the women they’d become.

  Hope you enjoy the interview with Sarah, below:

  Kimmery Martin—The four Guineveres live in a convent, in a world so insular they seem to possess almost no knowledge of popular culture, which gives the novel an arresting, timeless quality. One of the few clues to the timeline is the girls’ awareness that America is fighting a war, resulting in the maiming and deaths of many young men who were conscripted into service. How did you decide how much information to share with the reader regarding the era in which the story is set? Does the girls’ limited understanding of the world outside the convent have a specific meaning in the context of the plot?

  Sarah Domet—When I set out to write The Guineveres, I was interested in exploring a coming of age story set against the backdrop of Catholicism and war, two really large conceptual ideas that seemed distinct from the idea of girlhood itself. I’ve always been interested in how young girls forge a sense of identity beneath the overshadowing mythos of institutions, partly because of my own experiences growing up. I wanted to shine a light on the insularity of The Guineveres’ lives and the claustrophobia of it.

  Finding the right balance between what The Guineveres did and did not know was tricky. In initial drafts, The Guineveres were a bit too naïve about the world around them, and this became a problem for early readers. Like most elements of story, the right balance worked itself out eventually in revisions.

  However, I always remained steadfast in my refusal to name the war. I didn’t want to write a novel “about” World War II or Vietnam or Korea—or even the effect of these wars on young girls. Instead, I wanted to remain focused on the girls and their lives: their fears, desires, insecurities, and dreams. That’s where the heart of the story belongs.

  KM—I’m always fascinated by the research that goes into a novel, especially one set in circumstances outside the author’s own experiences. Most novice writers follow the oft-quoted maxim write what you know, which typically lends debut novels a semi-autobiographical feel. Not so in this case! How did you choose your setting and your subjects, and how did you manage to convey such authenticity to their voices?

  SD—Caveat: I grew up in a Catholic household and attended Catholic schools from 1st-12th grades. I often jokingly say, who needs fiction when you have the memories of a Catholic upbringing? Growing up Catholic provides plenty of strange, odd-ball stories that, when young, seem totally and completely normal. It never occurred to me, for instance, how strange it was to be shipped off to a Find God retreat, our watches seized, and our contact with the outside world cut off completely. In some countries, this is a mode of torture! Certainly, some of my own memories from my Catholic schooling have been repurposed and reimagined for the sake of this novel. And, as for the The Guineveres—it’s possible that they are an amalgam of me and so many self-conscious, self-flagellating girls I’ve known. Growing up is, after all, kind of traumatic.

  KM—Do you have a favorite among the four Guineveres?

  SD—I really don’t. I love all my Guineveres, and my heart aches for each of them in different ways. I’ve been asked several times: After working on the novel for so many years, aren’t you sick of it? Not at all. I’m now working on my next novel, and I find myself in fits of nostalgic reverie. I stop mid- paragraph and wonder: What would The Guineveres do?

  KM—The life stories of female saints, woven throughout the convent chapters, are beautifully portrayed. What significant do this stories have, and why did you include them?

  SD—A friend of mine gave me The Lives of the Saints for my birthday when I was in my early twenties. When I read the book, I was blown away by the stories. While many of the male saints were out in the world doing—founding abbeys, leading forces into battle, preaching, or participating in the world in a public way—many of the female saints held a sense of faith intrinsically linked to their bodies. Bodily suffering became a mode of practicing one’s faith, and so we see a lot of female saints inflicting suffering upon themselves—starving themselves, lying of beds of glass, wearing crowns of thorns, cutting off their breasts, burning their faces with lye, etc.

  As an adult—as an outsider, really—these stories took on new meaning for me. The stories and myths that shaped my upbringing, now, to my adult eye, seemed so much more complicated.

  Though I don’t directly tie the saint stories to those of The Guineveres, I do think the saint stories represent the kind of stories that The Guineveres were taught in terms of what makes a “good girl a good girl.” And these can be the kind of stories that lead girls to feel a sense of shame toward her body and her inability to ever attain that kind of perfection. And, yet, at the same time, I wanted the narrator, Vere, to find strength and commiseration in these stories. I wanted her to place her own suffering in context and consider how other women have encountered—and overcome—adversity.

  KM—The ending of The Guineveres is especially poignant. Did you know before you wrote it the path of each of the girls, or did you surprise yourself with their ultimate fates?

  SD—I think I always knew how the story would end, but I didn’t know how I would arrive there. That was the fun part for me: tracing The Guineveres’ steps, helping them arrive at this moment of redemption.

  KM—Your novel was selected for publication by one of the most acclaimed editors in the business, and is sucking up vociferous praise from Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and a slew of top-notch, big-name authors. How do you feel reading descriptions of your work? Did you expect this kind of success?

  SD—Most days, I still think I’m dreaming. I love reading descriptions of the book, mostly because I find it fascinating to see how others have interpreted the work. Once The Guineveres was published, I, as the author, really ceased to exist. It’s humbling and terrifying and enthralling all at once.

  Buy The Guineveres HERE

  (Support Readers! Buying a book through this link will return between 4-10% of the cost of the book to the website, which will then be donated to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation. Or check out your local independent bookstore!)

• Writer's Digest - http://www.writersdigest.com/qp7-migration-books/90-day-novel-interview

  Author Q&A: Sarah Domet
  By: admin | November 24, 2010
  0
  When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?

  I think I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer. I just didn’t know I knew. As a girl, I’d check out collections of poetry from the school library. I didn’t understand what I was reading, but I knew I liked the feel of checking out those books and reading them, even if they didn’t always make sense to me. When we were assigned book reports in elementary school, I’d read books like War and Peace, and hand-write 30 page synopses. (My ever-patient mother would then type these for me, asking me if I could, perhaps, shorten my summaries.)

  As a kid, I struggled with shyness—big time. (My school nurse sent me to a speech therapist who asked me why I didn’t like to talk. I shrugged my shoulders in response.) Writing was my outlet. It should come as no surprise that my earliest stories featured me as an outgoing protagonist, accomplishing all of these amazing feats—saving lives, conquering outer space, traveling in time, and meeting world leaders.

  What was the first thing you ever wrote?

  Something exceedingly embarrassing. I think it was a science-fiction story about traveling forward in time, only to coincidentally meet my family in the future who, of course, sent me home with messages and warnings for everyone. However, the logistics of the story didn’t make complete sense. For example, when I leapt forward in time, my brother and sisters, well into their 30s/40s by then, were all still living at home with my parents. In the illustrations, the “future” family all wore matching one piece jump suits that looked right out of Mork and Mindy.

  What do you think readers will gain from 90 Days to Your Novel?

  90 Days to Your Novel is a line in the sand with a challenge to cross it. It’s the kick in the pants, or the deadline, or the schedule, or the impetus for those who require such things. It’s not important what motivates you to write (passion, inspiration, guilt, catharsis, praise from your fourth-grade teacher, an outlet from your cubicle-confining day job, etc.), it matters that you write. The book asks its readers to put away clichéd notions of the Muse of Inspiration and, instead, focus on creating good writing habits—and on looking at a work of fiction as a reader would.

  Many other books out there offer up get-in-touch-with- the-beautiful-inner-you advice that really keeps writers focused on the elements of writing that are too abstract for anyone’s good. When writers read these books, they say: Okay, I’m in touch with my inner me. Now what? Now how the heck do I get this thing down on the page? These exercises often cause more frustration for a writer who doesn’t know how to even begin creating fictional worlds on the page. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s an excellent idea to get in touch with yourself—but for beginning writers, it’s more useful to talk about the less abstract, more concrete elements of fiction: characters, plot, structure, organization, etc.

  However, I recognized, too, that an instructional book can only take a reader so far. Part of novel writing—or of any art, in fact—involves a little bit of magic, too. But you can’t have magic without the magician’s tools: a top hat with a recessed bottom, a rabbit, a wand, etc. My books tries to offer up these tools in order to guide readers into the magic of storytelling.

  Who do you think would benefit from the book?

  Really, I think almost anyone could benefit from the book. First, those who’ve said they always wanted to write a novel, but didn’t have the________ (fill in blank with excuse: time, energy, know-how, deadline).

  Second, those who are about someone who has expressed their desire to write, but can’t (or won’t) yet.

  This past summer some of my (gracious, talented) writer friends and I formed a 90 Days writing group, the inverse of the typical reading group, to support each other as we worked on our independent projects. A little bit of writerly commiseration and accountability are amazing catalysts for productivity, I learned. If you can find a writing buddy, or group of buddies, your odds of finishing the 90-Day writing challenge will likely increase. I’d love to see some book clubs morph into writing clubs with the help of my book.

  What piece of advice have you received over the course of your career that has had the biggest impact on your success?

  I received one of my best bits of advice in a graduate writing workshop: Some people will love your fiction, and some people will hate it. Write the kind of stories you want to write. Be mindful of your audience, but don’t obsess.

  Secondly, if your writing feels too easy, it probably is. Easy writing doesn’t equal good writing. Writing never get easier with practice, but it can get better.

  And, finally, my personal mantra: Stop talking, start writing.

  What message do you find yourself repeating over and over to writers?

  Writing is every bit as much about habit as it is about inspiration. 90 Days to Your Novel repeats this message throughout its pages. By following a set schedule, and dedicating two to three hours to writing per day, you can easily complete a draft of a novel in three months. Inspiration won’t get you that far. If you sit around waiting for inspiration to hit, you’ll likely be sitting around forever.

  (I’ve always liked William Faulkner’s take on inspiration: “I only write when I feel the inspiration. Fortunately, inspiration strikes at 10 o’clock every day.”)

  As both a teacher and a writer, I’m always interested in dispelling the myth of the “creative writer” as someone who privileges messiness and chaos over logic and order. Many people still hold egregious misconceptions about writers and the writing life.

  Writers sharply observe the world, dissect it, and put it back together again, bit by bit, in authentic, surprising ways. In fact, good writers make order out of chaos, out of unlikely connections, and out of events, moments, and images taken out of context from their real lives. Writers require specialized skills of observation and logic, and a clear understanding of how experience is ordered.

  Most of the writers I know are structured, disciplined, hard-working people who have a keen sensitivity to the world around them. There’s no such thing as a writer type, except to say it’s one who writes.

  What’s the worst kind of mistake that new writers, freelancers, or book authors can make?

  Not setting priorities. If you have a day job, or a family, or other obligations, it’s easy to put writing off for those things that require immediate attention. I struggle with this on a daily basis. Should I write or do my laundry? Should I write or meet my friends for a drink?

  Also, being too in love with your writing is fatal. Be open to criticism and be honest with yourself when you assess your own work. Not every sentence you write will be worthy of someone else’s time.

  But the worst mistake of all, without a doubt, is quitting.

  What does a typical day look like for you?

  Atypical. But it always involves coffee and writing.

  What’s in your writing life that you can’t live without?

  1.) My day job. Though some days I gripe that I don’t have enough time to write due to my teaching responsibilities, I’ve been lucky to teach in both English and Writing departments where every day I’m surrounded by intelligent, sensitive people who are truly passionate about art, literature, and writing. On a regular basis, I have the luxury of thinking and talking about writing.

  Writing can be an isolating, frustrating, lonely profession. Once you’re in a writing fugue, making good progress, you may spend hour after hour, night after night, alone. The reality of the writer is really much less sexy than the myth. If you’re a serious writer, you probably spend a lot of time alone.

  I’m lucky enough to be able to engage with a community of writers on a regular basis. These individuals know first-hand about the highs and lows of being a writer.

  2.) My books. If not for big bookshelves lining my rooms, my walls may be completely bare. I like to think of my books as inspiration + decoration.

  Do you have any advice for new writers on building an audience?

  Your audience doesn’t care about you. Not one bit. They care about your story. Make them care about you through your story. Or better yet: Don’t worry what that think about you at all.

  Any final thoughts?

  I recently moved to the South from the Midwest, and this new experience almost immediately filtered itself into my writing. When I moved here, I was mid-way through working on a novel set in a boarding school in a rather non-descript (though probably Midwestern) town. The second half of the novel feels different from the first half, something I’m working on reconciling. But it’s made me think about how geography—topography—demography can shape writing.

  For instance, I now have a new repertoire of experiences from which to draw. I know what a scuppernong tastes like; I’ve seen the sides of back-country roads lined with remnant cotton balls during the cotton harvest; I’ve had pine straw get stuck in my shoes when I’m not careful; and I’ve listened to political stump speeches given by candidates atop bales of hay stacked on one side of a weekend farmers’ market, just like “in the olden days,” or, around here, like 6 weeks ago. That’s great stuff…

  While I don’t advocate that writers pick up and move across the country, I do think exposing yourself to new experiences will strengthen your writing by providing a broader range of experiences, details, and images that give texture to one’s writing.

The Guineveres
Tom Deignan
BookPage.
(Oct. 2016): p20.
COPYRIGHT 2016 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text: 
THE GUINEVERES
By Sarah Domet
Flatiron
$25.99, 352 pages
ISBN 9781250086617
Audio, eBook available
DEBUT FICTION
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Readers have long been fascinated by stories of women apart from the world, from 19th-century tales of girls imprisoned in convents to more
contemporary gems like Ann Patchett's The Patron Saint of Liars (1992). Sarah Domet's debut novel, The Guineveres, is a wonderful entry into
this rich tradition.
5/14/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1494818421761 2/5
Four girls, all improbably named Guinevere, are left by their parents with the Sisters of the Supreme Adoration. The convent, at first, seems
similar to an all-girls high school, complete with cutely named factions. The titular girls (known as Vere, Gwen, Ginny and Win) initially bond
over their shared name as well as their desire to escape. It turns out, however, that the convent is not unlike the real world. The girls experience
friendship and romance, tragedy and betrayal.
The Guineveres is mainly narrated by the more reserved Vere, who tells the story as an older woman looking back, and Domet deftly handles this
retrospective voice. Brief chapters on the lives of various female saints imbue The Guineveres with a broader sense of the adversity women have
faced over the centuries. All the while, Domet sustains a sense of humor. "Who's the patron saints of patron saints?" Win quips at one point.
At times sacred, occasionally profane, The Guineveres is a heavenly read from an author worth watching.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Deignan, Tom. "The Guineveres." BookPage, Oct. 2016, p. 20. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463755862&it=r&asid=34316f190de9b67a252225cc40b81950. Accessed 14 May
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463755862

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The Guineveres
Kristine Huntley
Booklist.
113.1 (Sept. 1, 2016): p46.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text: 
* The Guineveres. By Sarah Domet. Oct. 2016.352p. Flatiron, $25.99 (9781250086617).
When we first meet the four teenage Guineveres--brassy Gwen, fragile Ginny, bold Win, and earnest Vere--they are trying to escape the convent
in which their various parents have left them. The attempt fails, and stern Sister Fran sentences the four to care for comatose soldiers who have
been brought to the convent's infirmary. When one of the soldiers awakens, and an older girl leaves the convent to help care for him, the
Guineveres see another avenue for escape. Each girl claims a solider and tends to him diligently, pinning her hopes of a life outside the convent
walls on her patient. As the months wind on, and the soldiers fail to awaken, Gwen concocts a plan to identify the men in the hopes of bringing
their families to the convent. The novel is narrated by Vere, who studies the female saints closely as a way to explain the lives and suffering of her
and her fellow Guineveres, observing, "We cling to the most painful reminders of our youth ... perhaps so we can look back to our former selves,
console them, and say: Keep going. I know how the story ends." Domet's debut is a luminous bildungsroman, brimming with wisdom about how
girls view themselves, each other, and the world around them.--Kristine Huntley
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
YA/M: Teens are bound to identify with at least one of the girls as well as the complexities of their friendships. KH.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Huntley, Kristine. "The Guineveres." Booklist, 1 Sept. 2016, p. 46. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463755091&it=r&asid=0b9e33ca849fe3335a770acc959d5de9. Accessed 14 May
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463755091

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The Guineveres
Publishers Weekly.
263.35 (Aug. 29, 2016): p63.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
The Guineveres
Sarah Domet. Flatiron, $25.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-250-08661-7
Four girls named Guinevere, "a coincidence that bound us together from the moment we met," arrive within two years of one another at the
Sisters of the Supreme Adoration convent, in Domet's debut novel. The story is narrated by Vere, looking back to when she "was a sensitive
young girl, a girl who still had faith," but Vere sees her own story as so bound up with the other Guineveres, she commonly uses the first-person
plural. There is Ginny, "a delicate creature"; Winnie, funny and down to earth; and Gwen, the last to arrive and the most worldly of the four, a
pretty girl who longs to get out, who devises a plan for them to escape through a hollowed-out float during the convent's annual festival. The
Guineveres' punishment for their failed escape is three months of service in the convent's convalescent ward, to "reawaken [their] sense of
gratitude," in the words of Father James. When a group of comatose and unidentified soldiers, severely injured in a foreign war, are brought in,
the Guineveres develop a joint fantasy that the boys will wake and the girls will get to return home with them. Domet's concept is strong, an
homage to The Virgin Suicides with its group narration and fixation on trapped teenage girls. Though the story is a bit too long, Domet deftly
weaves in the girls' individual stories and the stories of female saints into her structure, making this a satisfying read on multiple levels. (Oct.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Guineveres." Publishers Weekly, 29 Aug. 2016, p. 63+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA462236413&it=r&asid=bb3a3a2c6d3cd0d22d708799a98a985a. Accessed 14 May
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A462236413

---

5/14/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1494818421761 5/5
Domet, Sarah: The Guineveres
Gloria Drake
Library Journal.
141.13 (Aug. 1, 2016): p81.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text: 
* Domet, Sarah. The Guineveres. Flatiron; Macmillan. Oct. 2016.352p. ISBN 9781250086617. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250086600. F
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Four girls, each named Guinevere and each with her own secret, heart-wrenching story, are abandoned at an austere convent. Ginny, Gwen, Win,
and Vere call themselves The Guineveres. While they share a name, they are very different. Artist Ginny, Hollywood hopeful Gwen, seemingly
stoic Win, and nurturing Vere form a tight bond. When four unconscious soldiers arrive at the convent with war injuries, each Guinevere chooses
to watch over a boy, with unforeseeable consequences. Following the church seasons and its ageless rituals, each protagonist's story of
abandonment is juxtaposed with tales of defiant Catholic female saints who experienced extreme suffering. In these adolescents' cloistered
existence, life is spare and difficult. These graphic stories of the saints support the theme that there are infinite ways to experience pain and loss,
and this has been true throughout time. With polished prose, Domet (English, Georgia Southern Univ.; 90 Days to Your Novel) offers an
unsettling, melancholy first novel whose tone echoes that of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides. VERDICT This phenomenal, characterdriven
story is mesmerizing, with just a glimmer of hope that good can emerge from the most troublesome situations. [See Prepub Alert, 4/3/16.]-
-Gloria Drake, Oswego P.L. Dist., IL
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Drake, Gloria. "Domet, Sarah: The Guineveres." Library Journal, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 81+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA459804971&it=r&asid=1512a4a68606a152bddd243dcdaa6040. Accessed 14 May
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A459804971

Deignan, Tom. "The Guineveres." BookPage, Oct. 2016, p. 20. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463755862&it=r. Accessed 14 May 2017. Huntley, Kristine. "The Guineveres." Booklist, 1 Sept. 2016, p. 46. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463755091&it=r. Accessed 14 May 2017. "The Guineveres." Publishers Weekly, 29 Aug. 2016, p. 63+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA462236413&it=r. Accessed 14 May 2017. Drake, Gloria. "Domet, Sarah: The Guineveres." Library Journal, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 81+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA459804971&it=r. Accessed 14 May 2017.

• The New York Times
  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/books/review/guineveres-sarah-demot.html
  Word count: 728

  Four Girls Named Guinevere Try to Flee a Convent
  By MAILE MELOYOCT. 14, 2016
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  Sarah Domet
  THE GUINEVERES
  By Sarah Domet
  342 pp. Flatiron Books. $25.99.

  I took “The Guineveres” on vacation, and a friend asked what I was reading. I said it was a novel about four girls, all named Guinevere, each abandoned at the same convent by their parents. She said, “O.K., I’m in.” I’m not very good at choosing beach reads — put on the spot, I once recommended an 800-page novel, and that’s too heavy to hold over your face as you lie in the sun. “The Guineveres,” Sarah Domet’s deft and lovely debut, is the perfect weight, in all ways. It’s suitable for a vacation, and you can describe it in one inviting line, but then it keeps unfolding and deepening, taking unexpected turns.

  The novel opens with an attempt by the teenage Guineveres to break out of the convent of the Sisters of the Supreme Adoration. They build a hollow parade float to escape in, a two-fingered victory sign made of chicken wire and colored tissue paper, “one finger away from the other universal symbol we wished to offer the convent upon our departure.” The nuns declare the float to be a hand of benediction, the first hint that the girls’ bid for self-determination might fail.

  Their plot foiled, the girls are sentenced to work in the convent’s sick ward, where they encounter five comatose, unidentified soldiers, “whose wounds were so deep you could smell it on them, even outside in the courtyard, a dusty metallic scent that made us take such short breaths we felt woozy.” The men have been injured in “the War,” and their dog tags are missing. One wakes, and remembers his name. His tearful family arrive, and another, older girl leaves to be his nurse. The Guineveres, who had been revolted by the men’s injuries, recognize a new chance to break free. If they can identify their charges, or wake them up, the families will be summoned and the girls can go home with them to tend their sons.

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  Vere, the first Guinevere to arrive at the convent, is the primary narrator, and the most taken with tales of martyrdom and extreme faith. Ginny, frail, with wild red hair, “liked to think of herself as an artist — not so much a person who created art as a person who was misunderstood. When she felt things, she felt them deeply.” Smoky-voiced Win is the strongest physically, and the least sentimental about her soldier. Gwen is the beauty and knows it, rubbing beets on her lips to redden them, flirting with the hapless resident priest. Their “revival stories,” as they call the circumstances that led their parents to give them up, “those moments when our eyes really opened to the truth,” are told in their own voices. Together they create a substitute family, and each has a different response to their plight.

  Intercut with their collective story are Vere’s retellings of the lives of the saints. These chapters emerge as examples, often gory, of women rejecting the meager possibilities offered to them — forced marriage, circumscribed existence — in a desperate search for something more exalted, a greater purpose.

  Viewed from within the convent walls, the outer world seems hazy in its details. The War is “a continent away,” and the girls want to escape to “the city.” As in Vere’s versions of the martyrdom of the saints, the world outside exists mostly as an abstraction, even when the girls’ escape plans begin to work. But inside the walls, a vivid, pungent, complex universe hums. And for Vere, the inner life of the passions is where the extraordinary and miraculous events occur.

• The Star
  https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2016/11/06/the-guineveres-captures-the-dreamlike-desperate-yearnings-of-adolescent-girls.html
  Word count: 579

  Four girls all named Guinevere are trapped in a “fortress” in the “middle of a desolate forest.” Sarah Domet’s debut novel may have a once-upon-a-time feel to it, but her eponymous girls are American teenagers in a convent school run by the Sisters of the Supreme Adoration. It’s 1942, and the girls have been deposited at the door of the fortress-like convent like so many unwanted parcels.

  Naturally they want out. We first meet the Guineveres, mid-escape, cleverly concealed inside a parade float during the annual celebration of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. Each “Guinevere” is distinct: pretty Gwen is boy-crazy; Win is strong, capable; birdlike Ginny mourns her missing father; Vere, our narrator, is a believer, Catholic to her core. When not aching to return “home,” they delight in mocking “The Sisters of Supreme Constipation” who rule their lives.

  They are, alas, very young. Gwen (“I’m full of ideas”) got the idea for their escape from a movie about a girl jumping out of a cake. She promises they’ll get jobs and marry “executives.” But everything dissolves when powerful Sister Fran blasts the girls’ float apart with her water hose. Recounting this painfully comic adventure twenty years later, Vere mostly remembers being 15 and “praying for someone to come rescue” her from her scratchy “monochrome” uniform, her regulated life.

  After this failure, the action moves back into the convent, with its rigid cliques. The “Specials” (girls still in contact with their families) stick together, noses “tilted upward as if attached to the ceiling by an invisible string.” The “Sads,” are despondent orphans; the “Poor Girls,” destitute. Although abandoned — “Their parents didn’t want them” — the Guineveres’ “private collective” makes them loyal to one another, until, being teenage girls, they aren’t.

  The sluggish days following their escape attempt are interwoven with colourful tales of Catholic saints whose “cloistered lives” resemble their own. Saint Rose of Lima’s sufferings were rewarded with the appearance of Jesus: there are plenty of saints and a surfeit of pain and redemption on the Catholic calendar. The Guineveres are not saints, but we get the picture. Suffering will be rewarded. Vere spices things up with “Revival Stories,” Sister Fran’s term for “spiritual awakenings.” The girls’ Revival Stories, however, tell of the moments when “our eyes really opened to the truth,” and the convent door closed behind them.

  America’s entry into the war is of meagre interest, until the girls are punished with three months of Sick Ward duties. Attending to the old and ill, they sullenly change bed pans in the “east wing of the convent, a different world entirely.” When nameless, comatose soldiers arrive, everything changes. They witness a miracle. A convent girl named Ebbie Beaumont simply walks away, medical aide to “Junior,” a soldier who wakes and must be taken home to recover.

  Soon each Guinevere has chosen her own comatose soldier, lavishing affection on “My Boy.” When their boys wake, Gwen assures them, it’ll be just like in the stories “Zorro and the Frog King.” (He’ll be rich of course.) Perhaps a kiss will do the trick? Feverish romantic fantasies end in ways none could have foreseen, but not before Domet has spun the schemes and passions of four adolescent girls into a dreamlike tapestry that speaks to anyone who’s ever been young and desperate for love.

• Star Tribune
  http://www.startribune.com/reviews-the-courtship-of-eva-eldridge-by-diane-simmons-and-the-guineveres-by-sarah-domet/408072756/
  Word count: 525

  REVIEWS: 'The Courtship of Eva Eldridge,' by Diane Simmons, and 'The Guineveres,' by Sarah Domet
  DECEMBER 25, 2016 — 2:00PM
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  The Courtship of Eva Eldridge: A Story of Bigamy in the Marriage-Mad Fifties

  By Diane Simmons. (University of Iowa, 272 pages, $19.95.)

  This is a curious book, reading almost like fiction, yet it is a true story, unearthed when Eva Eldridge named Diane Simmons, a family friend, to be executor of her estate. Among the possessions were 800 letters, tightly bound, clearly meant to be saved. Simmons, a former journalist, was intrigued. What she discovered is an unusual look at post-World War II America, when a national relief at having survived the Great Depression and war created a climate when marriage — to anyone — was a celebratory triumph. When Eva met Vick, he promised her more of the vibrant life she'd come to know as an independent working woman, one of millions who took up the slack when men were shipped overseas. When he disappeared, she figured it was war trauma.

  But in tracking him down, Eva learned that she was one of several wives. Simmons was captivated. Who was Vick? What drove him to eventually be married to 10 women at once? She finds a reasonable answer. But the more compelling glimpse is into how people exploited the culture's postwar romance with marriage and homemaking, and how some women learned that finding fulfillment in this life was mostly fantasy. "Courtship" is less about Eva than about expectations, but her story brings history to a poignantly personal level.

  KIM ODE

  “The Guineveres” by Sarah Domet

  “The Guineveres” by Sarah Domet
  The Guineveres

  By Sarah Domet. (Flatiron Books, 340 pages, $25.99.)

  Four girls abandoned by their parents become friends at a convent school — an orphanage, really — in a never-identified small town during The War (presumably World War I or II). They are drawn together because they share a birth name — Guinevere.

  Vere, the narrator, is a devout and hopeful child, pining for the mother who dumped her there. Gwen, the pretty one, is vain and often cruel, but she has her reasons. Win is strong and loyal. Ginny is tiny, shy, frail. Each has a tragic story that slips out over time. They are lonely, abandoned, brave children whose friendship with each other is the best thing they have going in an isolated convent, where life is harsh and boring.

  When four gravely wounded, comatose soldiers are brought to the convent's nursing home, the girls hatch a plot to escape by becoming linked with the young men, who may or may not ever regain consciousness. It's a bizarre plot that becomes a beautiful, sad, engaging story in the hands of American author Sarah Domet, one that gracefully jumps from the girls' present lives to their pasts to their futures, not necessarily in that order. This, her very first novel, belongs in the ranks of the best books of 2016.

• From Briefs to Books
  http://www.frombriefstobooks.com/2016/10/the-guineveres-by-sarah-domet/
  Word count: 500

  The Guineveres – by Sarah Domet
  By Patty Shlonsky on October 14, 2016
  POSTED IN FICTION
  The Guineveres“The Guineveres” is a first novel by Sarah Domet, about a group of girls who for a variety of reasons have been abandoned by their families and are living in a convent. Four of the girls unbelievably are named Guinevere and that commonality is enough to bring them together as best friends. The girls must live in the Convent until a family member comes to get them or until they become 18 years of age. Vere is telling the story two decades after the events she is describing and well after they have attained their independence.

  There are six sets of girls living in the convent–the Sads (parents died), the Specials (still had contact with their parents), the Poor Girls (extremely poor parents), the Delinquents (big trouble), the Almost 18 (speaks for itself) and the Guineveres. Each group is a world unto itself.

  When we first meet the four Guineveres (Ginny, Win, Vere and Gwen) they are trying to escape the convent by hiding in a float at a parade capping off the celebration of the Assumption of Mary. Needless to say the girls get caught and do not escape! As punishment for their attempt to escape, the girls are placed on a three month JUG in the convent’s Convalescence Ward, which houses the elderly and dying. While they are tending the old dying people, five soldiers, each in a coma, are brought in. There is a war going on and the Convent’s Convalescence Ward is needed as part of the “War Effort”. One of the soldiers regains consciousness and is sent home, along with an almost 18 year old girl who has also been assisting in the Ward. When the Guineveres see that they could leave as an aid to a convalescing soldier, they each adopt one of the soldiers as their own, referring to them as “Our Boys.”

  Religion and life with the nuns is an inextricable part of daily life throughout the novel. The girls become the first girls they know to become altar servers and enjoy a close and rewarding relationship with the Priest. The novel includes six interludes consisting of tales of various saints.

  Throughout the book the girls dream about life outside the convent. As time goes by, each of the girls has unique experiences and attains a life separate from the others. At various turns each leaves the convent and moves on.

  Domet does not tell us the time frame for the story, the location of the convent or which war is being waged. The novel is captivating and Domet is a talent to watch. The book was released October 4 and can be reserved at the Cuyahoga County Public Library by clicking on http://encore.cuyahoga.lib.oh.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb11216867__Sguineveres__P0%2C1__Orightresult__X7?lang=eng&suite=gold

• Paperback Paris
  http://www.paperbackparis.com/guineveres-sarah-domet-book-review/
  Word count: 948

  The Guineveres, Sarah Domet: Book Review

  Or, your average coming-of-age in a convent story.

  by Leah Rodriguez
  3 months ago
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  The Guineveres Book Cover Title: The Guineveres
  Author: Sarah Domet
  Genre: Fiction
  Publisher: Macmillan
  Release Date: October 4, 2016
  Format: Hardcover
  Pages: 352

  To four girls who have nothing, their friendship is everything: they are each other’s confidants, teachers, and family. The girls are all named Guinevere—Vere, Gwen, Ginny, and Win—and it is the surprise of finding another Guinevere in their midst that first brings them together. They come to The Sisters of the Supreme Adoration convent by different paths, delivered by their families, each with her own complicated, heartbreaking story that she safeguards. Gwen is all Hollywood glamour and swagger; Ginny is a budding artiste with a sentiment to match; Win’s tough bravado isn’t even skin deep; and Vere is the only one who seems to be a believer, trying to hold onto her faith that her mother will one day return for her. However, the girls are more than the sum of their parts and together they form the all powerful and confident The Guineveres, bound by the extraordinary coincidence of their names and girded against the indignities of their plain, sequestered lives. --Barnes & Noble

  Goodreads Barnes & Noble
  This review contains spoilers

  I don’t want to mince words when it comes to this book; The Guineveres was beautifully written. Sarah Domet possesses the envious ability to produce pristine and controlled prose that—at many points in this story—turn the mundane beautiful.

  It was the story itself that left me feeling lukewarm throughout the book. That’s not to say it was bad. In fact, it was sturdy and competent; Domet’s writing served it well. But it did nothing to grasp my attention in the ways I thought it might.

  I decided to read The Guineveres because one reviewer compared it to Jeffrey Eugenides‘ The Virgin Suicides—one of my favorite books. Here’s an important lesson: Don’t put faith in those comparisons. I would say the only similarities between the latter and Domet’s novel is the fact that four girls stand at the center of each their narratives; and that various religious elements are present in both. As a coming-of-age story, though, The Guineveres is decidedly better than most.

  Domet does an excellent job of developing each girl’s personality. Vere, the novel’s narrator, Win, Ginny, and Gwen complement each other and influence the group’s actions in distinct ways. As the novel reaches its climax, the reader understands almost instinctively how things will start to fall apart once the girls start going their separate ways.

  However, there were a few elements of the story that prevented me from connecting with it the way the author probably intended. The four comatose soldiers become an integral part of the plot—a way for the Guineveres to escape the convent. This plot convention rests on the naivete of these 15-year-old girls, something that I grew impatient with. The girls believe the soldiers will wake up, and then they will be allowed to go home with them.

  Their hope and faith (of course, the main theme since they’re in a convent) is equal parts touching and repellent. It’s upsetting that they see this as their only way out, but I couldn’t help but think that if they could just wait until they turned eighteen, the world would be their oyster. It’s also fairly obvious what’s going to happen later in the story when Vere and Gwen realize that one of the boys can still be sexually aroused.

  Which leads to a clumsy ending. I was surprised when Vere decides to stay at the convent and raise Gwen’s baby, but it is disappointing nonetheless. Of all the Guineveres, Vere and Win were the ones I wanted to make a successful life for themselves the most, outside the convent. Vere isn’t unhappy. She seems satisfied with her decision, and she knows young Guinevere will leave and discover the world. But it still seems Vere got trapped in the convent, forever in love with a comatose soldier.

  Though I appreciated Vere as the story’s narrator, I think it could have been interesting to tell the story from each girl’s perspective. It could have given the story some extra dimension when things start to unravel. Of course, the reader does get four chapters interspersed throughout the book, which explains how each girl ended up at the convent—each story as heartbreaking as the other. I can’t help but think if all the Guineveres had a hand in telling the story, I might not have hated Gwen and Ginny as much as I did. But here we are.

  When it comes down to it, the detail with which Domet renders life in the convent redeemed many of the story’s pitfalls for me. In fact, I got a few flashbacks while reading; I thought I would go my entire life without seeing detentions called JUGs again, which is a Christian school’s form of after school detention. It made me laugh out loud! Everything from the daily catechism lessons to the uniforms to the short descriptions of the lives of certain saints throughout the book made me keep reading, and in the end, they made it worthwhile.

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