British expat Maurice Symington, who knows the correct way to behave and expects the same of others, comes home to find the grown son of his long-estranged brother on the doorstep of his Washington, D.C., home. How to respond to this unwelcome intrusion threatens to upend Maurice’s predictable, quiet life in the novel “Georgetown and a Basset Hound.”
Good-natured, well-meaning nephew Mike, a recent college graduate, has the smarts to gain acceptance to an elite medical program at pricey Georgetown University near Maurice’s home, but not the means to pay for it. As a last resort, his luckless father, Tom, has sent him from Texas to Maurice in the hope that uncle might be willing to help nephew.
It’s everything that tidy, exacting Maurice doesn’t want. Ten years after a painful parting from his only love, Maurice has walled himself off from the world, contenting himself with making properly brewed pots of tea, walking his clumsy but affable basset Henry, and re-reading the British canon.
He finds himself living cheek-by-jowl with Mike who, in looking for the guidance he never received from hapless Tom, expects wise answers from this new father figure — a role Maurice never wished to take on. When Tom too arrives unexpectedly, the brothers lock horns repeatedly before being caught in an unraveling of secrets and misunderstandings that have crippled both their lives.
Now Maurice must decide whether to keep braving the painful uncovering of past harm— or simply to send his only relations away and again retreat behind the wall that has offered such reliable and familiar, if uninspiring, safety.
2. The Antagonists
For years, Maurice’s much-younger brother, Tom, struggled to keep a job in Houston while raising Mike alone. Tom has spent most of his life coping, only intermittently successfully, with uncaring parents, a self-centered ex-wife, and a world that has little patience for an Army vet with only a high-school degree. Nevertheless, he’s good-natured, likable and generous — except when it comes to his brother.
Tom was only a boy when Maurice left the family home in London for university, and was still quite young when his father’s oil company transferred the family to Houston, leaving Maurice in England. All Tom has ever heard about his brother since is that Maurice inherited a large sum from an English grandfather that he declined to share with his family and afterward moved to Washington to take a lucrative academic job.
Having received nothing from his brother, an embittered and hurt Tom figures Maurice owes something to his nephew, at least. So he sends son Mike, a recent college graduate who has been accepted for a medical fellowship at pricey Georgetown University, to Maurice’s home in hopes of being relieved of the cost of room and board. Circumstances later send Tom to D.C. as well, and the brothers find themselves reliving old family battles.
Minor antagonists are Mike, who tries valiantly to make himself agreeable but disrupts his uncle’s quiet life nevertheless, and Ken, an old friend Maurice had dropped abruptly years earlier, who is willing to rekindle their relationship but first has some uncomfortable questions for Maurice.
3. The Title
“Georgetown and a Basset Hound”
4. Comps
“Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,” by Helen Simonson
“Foreign Affairs,” by Alison Lurie
Kazue Ishiguro’s screenplay “Living,” a vehicle for Bill Nighy as a veteran civil servant in London
5. Hook Line
A man confronted with the son of his long-estranged brother must decide whether to aid his young nephew or remain behind the emotional wall he has built to shield himself from memories of a cold childhood and the devastating loss of an only love.
6. Two Levels of Conflict
Main:
Maurice’s cold London childhood has affected him far more deeply than he realizes, making him stand-offish and judgmental — traits that long have kept him from having close friends and serious relationships. He spends years working, playing his cello and caring for a series of much-loved basset hounds until finally allowing one woman past his defenses. A warm and outgoing Italian, she sees him for what he is and does her best to show her love for him, overlooking his inability to connect, until she can take no more, leaving Maurice shattered and even more withdrawn.
Secondary:
Mike enters Maurice’s life having experienced a hard childhood himself. Though his father has done his best to make Mike feel secure and loved after the boy’s mother leaves, Tom himself had done poorly in school and now finds himself losing job after job in a tight economy. The physical insecurity of being constantly thrown into new schools, living in sketchy neighborhoods and seeing his mother only occasionally has left Mike scrambling to keep up his education, make new friends and earn his mother’s approval. Though intelligent, likable and nice-looking, Mike lacks self-confidence and so does his best to make the peace and get along with everyone — until finally pushed to the brink by what he sees as his father’s ineptitude and his uncle’s unbending nature.
Tom too has suffered from the remoteness of his and Maurice’s parents, coping mostly by trying to stay out of the way and not cause trouble. While still a boy Tom moved with his parents to the States, where his father had been transferred, and where he was teased in school for his accent and his poor grades. After high school he enlists in the Army, where his handiness, his team spirit and his ability to follow orders earns him some success. Handsome in his uniform, Tom attracts a shallow, thoughtless woman who moves with him from post to post but eventually finds military life too stuffy and demanding. Tom agrees not to reap and they have their son, Mike. But the civilian world has little use for Tom, as does his self-centered wife, who grows tired of living on Tom’s merely adequate salary and leaves to pursue a frivolous life.
Tom is now doubly embittered by the treatment from his wife and from Maurice, whom he thinks abandoned him to their unfeeling parents and cheated him of an inheritance. Faced with looming financial troubles and the expensive fellowship for Mike, Tom sends his son to Maurice for help, hoping to keep Mike from knowing of their dire situation and reasoning that the world owes him at least this much.
7. Setting
Much of the story takes place in an English basement, a snug place to which Maurice has retreated from the main floors of his Georgetown row house. He has decorated the homey space with books and art prints, and spends many comfortable hours in front of the fireplace with his affable basset hound, Henry. In back is a narrow but lush back yard, where they enjoy gardening (Maurice) and snoozing (Henry). Living in the basement when an entire house can be had directly above puzzles Mike and irritates Tom; still, Maurice remains adamant about the three of them staying in the small space and declines to say why.
Nearby is the local dog park, an open green space with owners and dogs socializing in the area near the entry gate and a small playgroundbehind it. Far to one side is a lonely bench or two; here Maurice reads as Henry romps with the other dogs. Mike, once he arrives, wastes no time in befriending people and pets alike, thus forcing his uncle into speaking with them as well. In the end, Maurice has to admit that most of its habitues, whom he’d previously dismissed, to be friendly, interested and caring
A small neighborhood garage is where Maurice rekindles a relationship with Ken, the owner, whom Maurice dropped without explanation years earlier. Ken likes to leave the two garage doors open to the street, with a beat-up plastic wicker chair on the sidewalk where he takes breaks and watches the neighborhood go by. Running the length behind the garage area is a separate room with a makeshift kitchen, a few tables and chairs, and a bulletin board filled with photos of Ken’s family, his clients with their cars and children, and postcards from them all.
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1. Act of Story Statement
British expat Maurice Symington, who knows the correct way to behave and expects the same of others, comes home to find the grown son of his long-estranged brother on the doorstep of his Washington, D.C., home. How to respond to this unwelcome intrusion threatens to upend Maurice’s predictable, quiet life in the novel “Georgetown and a Basset Hound.”
Good-natured, well-meaning nephew Mike, a recent college graduate, has the smarts to gain acceptance to an elite medical program at pricey Georgetown University near Maurice’s home, but not the means to pay for it. As a last resort, his luckless father, Tom, has sent him from Texas to Maurice in the hope that uncle might be willing to help nephew.
It’s everything that tidy, exacting Maurice doesn’t want. Ten years after a painful parting from his only love, Maurice has walled himself off from the world, contenting himself with making properly brewed pots of tea, walking his clumsy but affable basset Henry, and re-reading the British canon.
He finds himself living cheek-by-jowl with Mike who, in looking for the guidance he never received from hapless Tom, expects wise answers from this new father figure — a role Maurice never wished to take on. When Tom too arrives unexpectedly, the brothers lock horns repeatedly before being caught in an unraveling of secrets and misunderstandings that have crippled both their lives.
Now Maurice must decide whether to keep braving the painful uncovering of past harm — or simply to send his only relations away and again retreat behind the wall that has offered such reliable and familiar, if uninspiring, safety.
2. The Antagonists
For years, Maurice’s much-younger brother, Tom, struggled to keep a job in Houston while raising Mike alone. Tom has spent most of his life coping, only intermittently successfully, with uncaring parents, a self-centered ex-wife, and a world that has little patience for an Army vet with only a high-school degree. Nevertheless, he’s good-natured, likable and generous — except when it comes to his brother.
Tom was only a boy when Maurice left the family home in London for university, and was still quite young when his father’s oil company transferred the family to Houston, leaving Maurice in England. All Tom has ever heard about his brother since is that Maurice inherited a large sum from an English grandfather that he declined to share with his family and afterward moved to Washington to take a lucrative academic job.
Having received nothing from his brother, an embittered and hurt Tom figures Maurice owes something to his nephew, at least. So he sends son Mike, a recent college graduate who has been accepted for a medical fellowship at pricey Georgetown University, to Maurice’s home in hopes of being relieved of the cost of room and board. Circumstances later send Tom to D.C. as well, and the brothers find themselves reliving old family battles.
Minor antagonists are Mike, who tries valiantly to make himself agreeable but disrupts his uncle’s quiet life nevertheless, and Ken, an old friend Maurice had dropped abruptly years earlier, who is willing to rekindle their relationship but first has some uncomfortable questions for Maurice.
3. The Title
“Georgetown and a Basset Hound”
4. Comps
“Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,” by Helen Simonson
“Foreign Affairs,” by Alison Lurie
Kazue Ishiguro’s screenplay “Living,” a vehicle for Bill Nighy as a veteran civil servant in London
5. Hook Line
A man confronted with the son of his long-estranged brother must decide whether to aid his young nephew or remain behind the emotional wall he has built to shield himself from memories of a cold childhood and the devastating loss of an only love.
6. Two Levels of Conflict
Main:
Maurice’s cold London childhood has affected him far more deeply than he realizes, making him stand-offish and judgmental — traits that long have kept him from having close friends and serious relationships. He spends years working, playing his cello and caring for a series of much-loved basset hounds until finally allowing one woman past his defenses. A warm and outgoing Italian, she sees him for what he is and does her best to show her love for him, overlooking his inability to connect, until she can take no more, leaving Maurice shattered and even more withdrawn.
Secondary:
Mike enters Maurice’s life having experienced a hard childhood himself. Though his father has done his best to make Mike feel secure and loved after the boy’s mother leaves, Tom himself had done poorly in school and now finds himself losing job after job in a tight economy. The physical insecurity of being constantly thrown into new schools, living in sketchy neighborhoods and seeing his mother only occasionally has left Mike scrambling to keep up his education, make new friends and earn his mother’s approval. Though intelligent, likable and nice-looking, Mike lacks self-confidence and so does his best to make the peace and get along with everyone — until finally pushed to the brink by what he sees as his father’s ineptitude and his uncle’s unbending nature.
Tom too has suffered from the remoteness of his and Maurice’s parents, coping mostly by trying to stay out of the way and not cause trouble. While still a boy Tom moved with his parents to the States, where his father had been transferred, and where he was teased in school for his accent and his poor grades. After high school he enlists in the Army, where his handiness, his team spirit and his ability to follow orders earns him some success. Handsome in his uniform, Tom attracts a shallow, thoughtless woman who moves with him from post to post but eventually finds military life too stuffy and demanding. Tom agrees not to reap and they have their son, Mike. But the civilian world has little use for Tom, as does his self-centered wife, who grows tired of living on Tom’s merely adequate salary and leaves to pursue a frivolous life.
Tom is now doubly embittered by the treatment from his wife and from Maurice, whom he thinks abandoned him to their unfeeling parents and cheated him of an inheritance. Faced with looming financial troubles and the expensive fellowship for Mike, Tom sends his son to Maurice for help, hoping to keep Mike from knowing of their dire situation and reasoning that the world owes him at least this much.
7. Setting
Much of the story takes place in an English basement, a snug place to which Maurice has retreated from the main floors of his Georgetown row house. He has decorated the homey space with books and art prints, and spends many comfortable hours in front of the fireplace with his affable basset hound, Henry. In back is a narrow but lush back yard, where they enjoy gardening (Maurice) and snoozing (Henry). Living in the basement when an entire house can be had directly above puzzles Mike and irritates Tom; still, Maurice remains adamant about the three of them staying in the small space and declines to say why.
Nearby is the local dog park, an open green space with owners and dogs socializing in the area near the entry gate and a small playground behind it. Far to one side is a lonely bench or two; here Maurice reads as Henry romps with the other dogs. Mike, once he arrives, wastes no time in befriending people and pets alike, thus forcing his uncle into speaking with them as well. In the end, Maurice has to admit that most of its habitues, whom he’d previously dismissed, to be friendly, interested and caring
A small neighborhood garage is where Maurice rekindles a relationship with Ken, the owner, whom Maurice dropped without explanation years earlier. Ken likes to leave the two garage doors open to the street, with a beat-up plastic wicker chair on the sidewalk where he takes breaks and watches the neighborhood go by. Running the length behind the garage area is a separate room with a makeshift kitchen, a few tables and chairs, and a bulletin board filled with photos of Ken’s family, his clients with their cars and children, and postcards from them all.