Teachers’ Notes
written by Pam MacIntyre
How I Live Now
by Meg Rosoff
Introduction
Troubled and troublesome, fifteen-year-old Daisy (her choice of name, originally
Elizabeth) is sent to live with her eccentric cousins in rural England, a stark
contrast to her apartment life in New York. Her mother died giving birth to her,
and her fraught relationship with her pregnant stepmother has taken her along a
self-destructive path of anorexia nervosa.
Daisy is sent to stay with her unknown English cousins, because, we divine, her
step mother is about to give birth, and Daisy’s father is at his wits’ end with her.
Bubbling in the background is an awareness that not all is right with the world,
but, in a realistic manner, not much notice is taken by the characters.
If this sounds like the usual adolescent “problem” or “issues” novel, it is not. All
these details are gradually and quietly revealed throughout the novel, though
Daisy herself is far from quiet, and it is her acerbic voice that draws us into this
compelling story. Not long after she arrives in the UK, her mother’s sister, Aunt
Penn, travels to Oslo to a peace summit, and war breaks out in England.
Despite bombings in London (p25), initially all proceeds much as usual for the
self-sufficient group of Osbert, Isaac, Edmond, Piper and Daisy, except that
Daisy and fourteen-year-old Edmond fall into a passionate relationship. Then the
war and occupation intrudes, the cousins are separated with Piper and Daisy
being sent to stay in a distant village, and it becomes a matter of survival for
them. The two make their way back to the farm, and then Daisy is abruptly
repatriated.
The appeal of How I Live Now is not only in its narrative scenario, compelling
though that is, but in its originality and unconventionality. Daisy’s acerbic,
fragmented mode of telling, which relates only what she thinks is important to
know, means that we as readers are continually involved, filling in the gaps. The
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central characters of Edmond, Isaac and Piper, as perceived by Daisy, are not
the standard characters of fiction for young people: Isaac barely speaks and
seems to be able to communicate with animals (Daisy calls him a dog
whisperer); Edmond seems to be able read Daisy’s thoughts, and intuit what is
behind what people say. And Piper has inner goodness. Daisy recognises their
qualities and sees that they need protection from a more pragmatic, cynical
society.
This is a book about big themes – war, love, loyalty, survival, friendship and
accepting oneself, but it is not told in any heavy handed, conventional manner.
All events come to us through Daisy, a most appealing, frank, non-moralistic
narrator. One of the refreshing strengths of this book is its lack of moral
judgments. Events are recounted candidly, and we the readers are left to our
own responses and interpretations. This makes it ideal for discussion as it opens
up spaces for readers to negotiate with the text.
Style
What is striking about this book is how it is written, how the story comes to us
through Daisy’s New York voice and “cool” view of the world, and how that
changes over the course of events. For example, when fourteen-year-old
Edmond picks her up at the airport with a cigarette in his hand, she says ‘I don’t
say anything in case it’s a well-known fact that the smoking age in England is
something like twelve and by making a big thing about it I’ll end up looking like an
idiot when I’ve barely been here five minutes.’
Part One of How I Live Now is written in a style called “skaz”, which David Lodge
in The Art of Fiction tells us is:
a Russian word (suggesting “jazz” and “scat”, as in “scat-singing”) used to
designate a type of first person narration that has the characteristics of the
spoken rather than the written word. In this kind of novel or story, the narrator is a
character who refers to himself (or herself) as “I” and addresses the reader as
“you”. He or she uses vocabulary and syntax characteristic of colloquial speech,
and appears to be relating the story spontaneously rather than delivering a
carefully constructed and polished written account. Needless to say, this is an
illusion, the product of much calculated effort and painstaking rewriting by the
“real” author … but is an illusion that can create a powerful effect of authenticity
and sincerity, or truth telling. (p18)
Famous examples of this style are Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn and JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. You might like to look at them and
compare the language with How I Live Now. Huck Finn was written in 1885,
Catcher in the Rye in 1951 and How I Live Now in 2005.
• How has the vernacular, colloquial language changed?
• Are there any expressions/phrases that you don’t understand, or can’t
work out?
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Are any colloquialisms similar, or express similar meanings?
Does the language in the book/s reveal anything about the society of the
time – its values, etc?
Here are some of Daisy’s sardonic comments. Find others that appeal to you.
• ‘and of course being me, now that there was a war on and rationing and
all, I was in deprivation heaven …’ (p51)
• ‘for all I knew the Green Beret was already holed up in Bloomingdales’
(p63)
• Daisy’s description of the family is as not ‘exactly remind[ing] you of Little
Women even on our best day’.
• ‘So I did what every other sensible New Yorker has been doing for years
in the Public Library, I tore the page out and hid it in my underwear.’ (p745)
Structure
The story is divided into two sections, part one unfolding chronologically except
for the first chapter. This chapter acts as a prologue, telling us that the events
that follow are recollections, and that a war and someone called Edmond are
going to be significant in life-changing events for Daisy.
Part two moves forward five years, after the war, when Daisy returns to England
– comes ‘home’ as she puts it, and the intervening gaps are filled in for her and
the reader. This section shows us that the war did not end when the occupying
forces left: the consequences are long lasting. Edmond is severely damaged and
Daisy’s task is to rehabilitate him through her strength of character and love for
him. The book perhaps ends on a note of defiant acceptance, if that is not an
oxymoron.
It would be valuable to discuss the effect of this partitioning of the text and what it
suggests about real life, and the way we deal with terrible events. Here it is also
useful to consider the choice of the title, for ‘how I live now’ are the final words in
the book, spoken by Daisy. Consider the power of that last, brief sentence and
what it might mean in terms of the “message” of the book. There are sure to be
different interpretations and responses.
Relevant here also is the change of style between the two sections. While Part
two is still first person, it drops the “skaz” form for more standard prose, and
speech is rendered conventionally using quotation marks, for example.
• For what purpose has the author chosen to do this?
• What is the effect on the reader?
• Does it suggest something about Daisy?
While the book has a physical structure, divided into sections, it also has an
internal structure that divides it between the initial utopia of life on the rural
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property, with its cats, ducks, and a rambling, rundown, beautiful old stone house
(p8-9) and life without the intervention of adults. Then there is the dystopia when
war comes to the village, the cousins are separated, and violence and physical
horrors mount. It might be useful to identify the elements of the utopia as
proposed in the book, such as lack of regulation, rules and adult supervision,
typified in ‘four kids and a goat and a couple of dogs’, but also responsibility and
capability.
For example, on page 13 when Piper makes tea, Daisy says ‘In New York, nineyear-olds don’t do this kind of thing, but wait for some grown-up to do it for them’.
Another contrast is in the relationships between parents and children. In New
York, Daisy’s relationships are obviously fraught (but we are only getting her side
of the story) whereas Aunt Penn (p15-16) is sensitive, kind and physically
demonstrative.
The utopia of rural England is contrasted with Daisy’s previous life in New York.
For example, on page 12 Daisy awakes to ‘everything was perfectly still and
beautiful and I stared and stared expecting to see a deer or maybe a unicorn
trotting home…’ rather than the traffic noise of a big city. Her use of ‘unicorn’
suggests a mythical place.
• Do you think the author intends us to think that it really is too good to be
true – not quite “real”?
• Or is it simply to make a contrast with shattered life during and after war?
Perhaps discuss whether this is a conservative or radical view of what constitutes
an “ideal” world. Attributes of the idea of the pastoral (rustic innocence, simplicity,
tranquillity, protection from harm) infuse the novel, which also proposes a world
in which young people can work together harmoniously and sensitively.
• Think of the skills of Isaac, Edmond and Piper. Are they a more advanced
form of human being? Daisy sees them as special. For example, on page
178 she describes Jonathan and herself as ‘outsiders … we both saw our
role somewhere in the quadrant of Privileged Caretakers’. And on page
179 Daisy describes how ‘both Edmond and Isaac knew, in the way they
knew things, that something was wrong, something bad was going to
happen’. She says of the cousins that they had a ‘watchful stillness’
(p112). What do you think this suggests?
Cultural Difference
Often in books, cultural difference is expressed between different language and
ethnic groups. In this book, all the characters are Anglo Saxon/Celts; all speak
the same language.
• What distinguishes the American girl and way of life from her English
cousins? Find examples, such as when Daisy arrives from the New York
City at London airport, straight from a New York apartment, to be
immediately plunged into a rural ramshackle, ‘but beautiful’ farm
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household and eccentric family. Large, sprawling, and comfortable, the
house operates as a metaphor for the family itself.
Or page 10 when Daisy says of Osbert that he speaks in a ‘slightly sneery way’
and that he ‘reminds me of people I know in New York City’. Later, on the same
page, when the cousins make cups of tea, Daisy says ‘they asked me lots of
questions in a much more polite way than would ever happen in New York,
where kids would pretty much wait for some grown-up to come in all fakecheerful and put cookies on a plate and make you say your names’.
• What does this reveal about the ideology of the text?
P66-7 provides another example of Daisy’s American approach. She and Piper
are being sent away, and Daisy can’t understand how the English cousins don’t
react, don’t say ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding when told to vacate their home
and abandon their newly discovered loved ones by a bunch of jumped-up reject
army guys playing war games for a lark’
• What do you think would be a typically Australian response?
The English family is home schooled except for Osbert, and this ‘schooling is
very relaxed, with not much formal instruction – reading whatever you liked’
(p22). Also, on pages 22-3 Daisy comments that in New York, Isaac ‘would have
been stuck in a straightjacket practically from birth and dangled over a tank full of
Educational Consultants and Remedial Experts…’.
• We know that Daisy is a great one for capital letters, but is there any truth
in what she says about US society?
Social Comment
This book invites us to reflect on our contemporary society and its values, often
through Daisy’s glimpses of her previous life in the US. For example, on page 9
when referring to a rape, she says of it that ‘you read about in the paper ten
times a day and always ignore unless the rapist turns out to be a priest or
someone on TV.’
• This is loaded with gender, class, celebrity, media connotations. Is Daisy
too cynical, or do you agree with her?
• Find other examples of Daisy’s take on contemporary life.
Characters
‘In a novel, names are never neutral. They always signify, if it is only ordinariness
… the naming of characters is always an important part of creating them … Once
made, it becomes inseparable from the character …’ (Lodge, p37-38).
The names of the characters alert you their being different or unusual.
• Talk about the characters’ names and what they suggest to the readers,
and why the author might have chosen them.
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Do they make connections with other literary/non-literary characters? A
good comparison here would be with Sonya Hartnett’s characters whose
names are always distinctive and signifying, such as Tin and Harper Flute
(Thursday’s Child) Adrian (Of a Boy) and Gabriel/Anwell and Finnigan
(Surrender).
Perhaps talk about what you would name characters in possible stories, or
characters you would like to create, or have imagined.
How is naming them important to who they are?
Daisy, 15, changes her name.
• How differently would you react to her had she been Elizabeth?
• What sort of person is she at the beginning of the book and at the end?
Locate examples in the book that support your view.
• Why does she write some things in capital letters?
Following are some examples I enjoyed, but you find your own.
• For example, on page 7 Daisy says on seeing the farmhouse for the first
time ‘I have one of the Oh Yeah, This Is So Much What I Usually Do kind
of faces of anyone in my crowd’.
On page 16 Aunt Penn describes her as ‘vivid’.
• Is she a drama queen? For example, on p20 she tells us that her mother
died giving birth to her so she regards herself as a ‘murderer’. (Here you
might like to make a comparison with another fictional drama queen,
Josephine Alibrandi – or a film equivalent, such as Lizzi McGuire)
• On page 36 Daisy reveals that she has been to a shrink – consider the
way she reveals it.
Daisy says ‘Osbert was the only one who didn’t seem suspicious. He was so
interested in the Decline of Western Civilisation that he missed the version of it
taking place under his nose’. She is also aware that the sexual relationship
between her and Edmond is not acceptable in ‘normal’ times.
• Do you agree?
• On page 45 Daisy says the war made possible the relationship between
her and Edmond – ‘there was no longer any Real World’. This chapter is
the description of their love affair. Why would the war make any
difference?
The story on one level is about Daisy’s antagonism to her stepmother, and
perhaps her anorexia is a reaction to the new situation.
• What do readers think is the cause of her not eating, and being sent to the
UK?
• Daisy has a lively imagination and a ‘thin skin’. Consider her reaction to
Piper saying she is too thin (p15).
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When Piper holds her hand she is touched because ‘Being Nice to Daisy’
hadn’t happened much lately. Why does she refer to herself in the third
person?
Daisy is aware of the irony in the situation that while she is surrounded by
threat, uncertainty, death etc (p52) that she feels more alive than she ever
has – and safe with Edmond. Why does she feel ‘alive’?
Daisy’s relationship with Edmond has a psychic element - she senses his
presence, even when they are separated. On page 85 she has a vision of the
place where he and Isaac were staying.
• What do you make of this metaphysical/psychic connection?
• Do you believe it?
• Can you explain it?
• Do you accept Daisy’s explanation on page 85?
• On page 154 when Daisy can no longer feel Edmond, do you think he is
dead?
Daisy’s anorexia
• What does it tell us about her - her personality? For example, on page 42
she tells us that she thought her stepmother was poisoning her, then she
liked the power that not eating gave her.
• She appears to enjoy punishing others, doesn’t she? (p43), and she thinks
about dying to make others feel guilty.
Perhaps what she says on page 96 gives an insight – ‘because pushing myself
further and further past what was possible made me feel calm, which is hard to
explain but something I was good at.’
• She is a sassy girl but is this attitude hiding low self -esteem? You might
like to assemble what she says about home and school to provide
evidence for your opinion.
Edmond is fourteen, and from the beginning, seems to read Daisy’s mind.
• Is he psychic, or is there a strong connection between the two
cousins/lovers?
On page 31 Daisy says he looks pale – as if he has had a premonition about her
- when he hears that Aunt Penn can’t return.
Daisy describes him as ‘some kind of mutt, you know the ones you see at the
dog shelter who are kind of hopeful and sweet and put their nose straight into
your hand when they meet you with a certain kind dignity…’ (p5).
• Is that how you see him?
Isaac (Edmond’s twin) is a shadowy, yet quietly potent presence. On page 34
Daisy says of him that he watches over all of them, although he barely speaks.
On page 35-6 she says ‘At times I thought he was more animal than human … It
was like he understood humans objectively … but around animals was totally
engaged’.
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What do you make of Isaac?
Is he just plain weird?
Piper - 9, ‘solemn’ (p8), direct, quiet, capable, but the cook, the provider when
the others are wrapped in their own lives. On page 75 Daisy says of her ‘that
there isn’t another person anything like Piper this side of Kingdom Come.’
• What do you make of Piper?
• Is she too perfect?
• Is her only purpose in the novel to provoke Daisy out of her self-absorption
and self-obsession?
Osbert – the eldest, sixteen, according to Daisy, is involved in some sort of
secret spying. Osbert is not very prominent in the novel because Daisy doesn’t
have much to do with him.
• Do you think that is because she is afraid he will “suss her out”?
Each of these characters comes to us through Daisy.
• Perhaps it might be valuable to imagine particular scenes/events in the
novel from Edmond’s/Isaac’s/Piper’s point of view. This could be
dramatised/acted/scripted/story boarded, or the characters could be
interviewed about their perspectives, and impressions of Daisy.
Idea of the Hero
Daisy is an ordinary girl who finds herself in an extraordinary situation, and
doesn’t consider herself to be heroic.
• Do you think she is?
Debate the following:
‘Survival is a state of mind, not a physical act’.
Central Ideas
There are various expressions of love in the book, the most obvious being the
passionate love between Daisy and Edmond. On pages 76-77 Daisy thinks about
loving someone more than yourself, loving Piper and Edmond in different ways
and getting panicked that the ‘world’s biggest warehouse of magical misfits’
might get ‘captured or corrupted by the outside world.’
• What does she mean by corrupted?
• And why is this important to Daisy’s survival?
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Symbols
There are no illustrations, except for butterflies surrounding the title, what look
like thorny roses and a butterfly facing the title page, and scribbles around ‘Part
One’ and ‘Part Two’.
• What is the purpose of these visual symbols?
• What sense do we make of them?
• Do they affect the way we anticipate the book?
Consider the impact of the description of Edmond’s garden on page 173 in the
light of the previous division of the book into utopia and dystopia. The farm is
peaceful, it is a beautiful day, and yet the garden is ‘suffocating, charged,
ferocious, selfish, starving’.
• Does it symbolise Edmond’s mental state?
• And/or does it have wider social resonances – loss of innocence,
corruption of the pastoral – even biblical (garden of Eden) associations?
War
This war is subtle, creeps up on the characters, and described in terms of the
effects it has on the lives of citizens, rather than soldiers.
• Perhaps create a time line that reveals its escalating effects.
For example, it starts on page 25 with a bomb going off in London and killing
70,000 people. Airports, are closed, there are increasing food shortages
On page 33, the US is attacked, but not New York.
Pages 39-40-41 reveal how rumours spread, anarchy begins, people in the
village change, the theories about what is happening, beginnings of divisions
between locals and the Londoners and their weekenders. Meanwhile, the
cousins ignore how the cousins ignore reality. ‘WE DIDN’T REALLY CARE’
(p41).
• Would the outcome have been different if they had been more aware?
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five weeks since the war started and there is a breakdown of
communication, no newspapers. (p48)
outbreak of smallpox; they are confined to the house; there are food
drops. (P49)
the changes so gradual that the impact was delayed, also by beauty of the
season and that they had plenty of fresh food in the garden, goats’ milk
etc. (p49)
no antibiotics so people are dying from ordinary illnesses. (p52)
doctor visits – no drugs for high blood pressure, diabetes etc. And the
change after that visit. (p55)
the day at the river, the calm before the storm. (p59)
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visit from military, house being sequestered. (p62)
the turning point. House taken over by military. (p65)
Piper and Daisy are separated from the others. (p67)
P68-69 drive through abandoned countryside, tanks on the roads,
checkpoints, occupying forces
Daisy and Piper stay with the McEvoys. (p70-71)
Daisy’s planning to get to the boys again, the river on the map. (p74)
candles getting scarce. (p75)
they get a clearer idea of the war and its consequences for ordinary
people. (p78-80)
How prepared is anyone for war? ‘I didn’t really understand The
Occupation because it didn’t seem like the kind of war we all knew and
loved from your average made-for-TV miniseries.’ (p81 ) Discuss.
how the country was immobilised. (p82)
the two girls start working, Piper with Jet and Daisy picking crops. (p90)
the first violence and killing – shocking, unpredictable, almost gratuitous.
(p99) How does this shift your feelings as a reader?
consider the effect on Mrs McEvoy, as an example of the effect on
ordinary people during war: ‘If you haven’t been in a war and are
wondering how long it takes to get used to losing everything you think you
need or love, I can tell you the answer is no time at all.’ (p106)
strange alliances Daisy says, but what is important to people? What does
Piper symbolise to the soldiers? (p109)
barn is attacked and they flee with initial help from the soldier Baz.
Beginning of Daisy and Piper’s time alone. (p113)
dangers of being shot on sight, even by locals.( p115)
‘I made jam sandwiches for breakfast and they tasted hopeful’ – it is now
September. (p116)
Daisy and Piper find a little hut which feels ‘like a five star hotel’. Consider
how differently they now pass the time.( p118)
effects of hunger on growth of Piper (p123), resourcefulness too of Daisy
– her transformation – why does she start eating?
lighting a fire – it is not bravado and ‘derring do’ but little accumulations of
skills and knowledge born of necessity. (p126)
what do you make of what they hear in the night? (p129)
There is no flinching in the writing, of the horrors of war. Consider the
tension in the writing on page 134 when Daisy and Piper reach Gateshead
farm – the crow, the silence, the sleek, well-fed, unafraid foxes, the stink,
the horror of the bodies and the carrion.
they get home and all is lush still, but as if it belonged to another life.
(p138)
the sense of loss and despair heightened by their being at home, clean
and safe. (p147)
what country kids know how to do. (p149)
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‘Somewhere along the line I’d lost the will not to eat … because the idea
of wanting to be thin in a world full of people dying from lack of food struck
even me as stupid’ (p152). Perhaps talk about this example of the contrast
between the behaviour of people in affluent, prosperous, indulged western
societies and the situation in Africa now – the purpose of Live 8, for
example.
Discuss p152 ‘Every war has its silver lining’
Daisy cleans and restores the house as much as she can – why do you
think? (p255)
Dramatic, abrupt end to part one - p156 the phone rings but we can only
guess who it is.
Part two – six years later
Look at how this section is written and punctuated.
• Why the difference?
• The war has lasted six years and Daisy goes back to England – she calls
it home. She returns at the same time of the year – is that important?
• Is spring symbolic?
• Her narrative voice is different, more subdued – mature?
• The family is now self-sufficient. Is the author suggesting that is a model
for the future?
Talk about what you understand to have happened to Edmond.
• What couldn’t he live with?
• Why has he tried to kill himself several times?
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What significance is there in Daisy’s comment that by saving Piper, she
saved herself? (p185)
What are the effects of the war on each of them?
The Future
After occupation, cooperatives are set up and that is where Piper meets
Jonathan.
• Is this proposed as a new model for society?
• Can it be seen as a return to utopia?
• Consider the contrast between the city and country, which returns to some
sort of pastoral situation.
Follow-on Activity Ideas
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Writing: Experiment with a ‘scaz’ style.
Draw, make a model of, design on computer, or animate the utopic farm,
and then what it looks like when Daisy and Piper return.
Choose “mood” music to accompany both the scenes before the war, and
after.
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Choose music/songs that represent each character.
What happened to Edmond? Fill the gap the story has left.
Predict what the future will be for Daisy and her cousins, and the western
world.
Imagine you had to survive in the Australian countryside, as did Piper and
Daisy in rural England. What would you eat? Where and how would find
water? How would you make a shelter?
Comparable Stories
Future societies during and after war
• John Marsden’s Tomorrow Series
• Robert Swindell’s Brother in the Land
• Utopias
• In Arcadia by Ben Okri
• Lois Lowry’s The Messenger
• Gary Ross’s film Pleasantville
• Think of other fantasies that suggest a positive society – or satirise it.
Dystopias
• Probably the most famous futuristic fictional dystopias are Aldous Huxley’s
Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
(1949). Were they accurately predictive?
• Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn and Ashling books can be seen as
dystopic. You might like to track down other science fiction/fantasy novels
that propose dark futures.
• Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner, based on the book Do Androids Dream
of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, also proposes a future dystopia, as
does Stanley Kubrick’s film Clockwork Orange based on the book of the
same name by Anthony Burgess.
War
• David Metzenthen’s Boys of Blood and Bone explores soldiers’ behaviour
during war, and the consequences.
• Anthony Eaton’s Fireshadow examines prisoners of war.
Stroppy girls
• How the Light Gets In, MJ Hyland – for another difficult/original girl, or the
wonderful memoir, Too Close to the Falls by Catherine Gildiner.
• Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi
• Helen Barnes’s Killing Aurora which also looks at an anorexic girl.
Metaphysical/psychic elements
• David Almond’s Kit’s Wilderness
Survival Stories
• Stuart Diver’s Survival
• Jason McCartney After Bali
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