10. What are the various ways in which Pam experiences family? How about you?
11. Contents was originally conceived as “144 reasons not to commit suicide.” What would your own version of “144 reasons not to commit suicide” look like?
M O R E N O R T O N B O O K S W I T H
R E A D I N G G R O U P G U I D E S A V A I L A B L E
Diana Abu-Jaber
Birds of Paradise
Crescent
Origin
Diane Ackerman
The Zookeeper’s Wife
Rabih Alameddine
I, the Divine
Rupa Bajwa
The Sari Shop
Andrea Barrett
The Air We Breathe
The Voyage of the Narwhal
Peter C. Brown
The Fugitive Wife
Lan Samantha Chang
Hunger
Inheritance
Anne Cherian
A Good Indian Wife
Marilyn Chin
Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen
Leah Hager Cohen
House Lights
Michael Cox
The Glass of Time
The Meaning of Night
Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Andre Dubus III
The Garden of Last Days
John Dufresne
Louisiana Power & Light
Requiem, Mass.
Anne Enright
The Forgotten Waltz
Jennifer Cody Epstein
The Painter from Shanghai
Ellen Feldman
Lucy
Scottsboro
Susan Fletcher
Eve Green
Oystercatchers
Paula Fox
The Widow’s Children
Betty Friedan
The Feminine Mystique
Denise Giardina
Emily’s Ghost
Barbara Goldsmith
Obsessive Genius
Stephen Greenblatt
Will in the World
Helon Habila
Waiting for an Angel
Patricia Highsmith
Strangers on a Train
Ann Hood
Dara Horn
All Other Nights
The World to Come
Janette Turner Hospital
Due Preparations for the Plague
Pam Houston
Sight Hound
Helen Humphreys
Coventry
The Lost Garden
Wayne Johnston
The Custodian of Paradise
Erica Jong
Sappho’s Leap
N. M. Kelby
White Truffles in Winter
Peg Kingman
Not Yet Drown’d
Nicole Krauss
The History of Love*
Don Lee
Country of Origin
Ellen Litman
The Last Chicken in America
Vyvyane Loh
Breaking the Tongue
Benjamin Markovits
A Quiet Adjustment
Joe Meno
The Great Perhaps
Maaza Mengiste
Beneath the Lion’s Gaze
Emily Mitchell
The Last Summer of the World
Honor Moore
The Bishop’s Daughter
The White Blackbird
Liz Moore
Heft
Donna Morrissey
Sylvanus Now*
Daniyal Mueenuddin
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Patrick O’Brian
The Yellow Admiral*
Samantha Peale
The American Painter Emma Dial
Heidi Pitlor
The Birthdays
Jean Rhys
Wide Sargasso Sea
Mary Roach
Bonk
Spook*
Stiff
Gay Salisbury and
Laney Salisbury
The Cruelest Miles
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
The Snow Fox
Laura Schenone
The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken
The Hazards of Good Breeding
Perfect Life
Frances Sherwood
The Book of Splendor
Joan Silber
Ideas of Heaven
The Size of the World
Johanna Skibsrud
The Sentimentalists
Dorothy Allred Solomon
Daughter of the Saints
Mark Strand and
Eavan Boland
The Making of a Poem*
Ellen Sussman (editor)
Bad Girls
Mary Helen Stefaniak
The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia
Sara Stockbridge
The Fortunes of Grace Hammer
Brady Udall
The Lonely Polygamist
Barry Unsworth
Land of Marvels
Sacred Hunger
Brad Watson
The Heaven of Mercury*
Jenny White
The Abyssinian Proof
Belle Yang
Forget Sorrow
Alexi Zentner
Touch
*Available only on the Norton Web site
More praise for
Contents May Have Shifted
“With her trademark intelligence and unwavering nerve, Pam Houston has once again beautifully ruined me with her words. In Contents May Have Shifted, she takes us around the world and deep into a human heart with such fearless precision we come to feel both the world and that heart as our own. Houston is funny and wise. She’s intimate and raw.”
—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
“Highly recommended for adventurous readers.”
—Library Journal
“A lyrical meditation on the limits of vision and experience, the routes we travel in order to reach an understanding of our place in the world, and how we cobble together a sense of selfhood from disparate parts. . . . Fundamentally affirmative, Houston’s work places us on a peak between earth and sky, showing us how normal it is to both fall in love with, and feel nervous about, the eternally shifting nature of the self, and of the world.”
—St. Louis Magazine
“Rewards: a gradual unfolding of the knots of pain beneath Pam’s troubled back and emotional life; the artful ways in which the sections reflect each other; the steady revelation of multiple layers of wonder; the fragile connection that grows between Pam and Rick’s young daughter. And the near magical sense of completion in the final pages—the feeling you get each time a kaleidoscope clicks momentarily into place, revealing yet another beautiful form.”
—Jane Ciabattari, Boston Globe
“Houston can be wickedly funny and she is an astute observer of human behavior. . . . Armchair travelers will rejoice in her lively descriptions of venues as diverse as Drigung, Tibet and Denver, Colorado.”
—Elayne Clift, New York Journal of Books
“The more time you spend with Contents, the more you see its genius as both separate pieces and a whole.”
—Rebecca Barry, San Francisco Chronicle
“Sometimes fearless, sometimes scared to death, the narrator . . . doesn’t take herself too seriously during these quests, which often include near-death experiences, and she skillfully captures the essence of each place she visits.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“True to its title, each snippet harbors small dips and rises that add up to cumulative wisdom by book’s end, and a satisfying arc of anecdote that makes a convincing whole.”
—Ben Fulton, Salt Lake Tribune
“A tale so vivid, intricate, and intimate that it puts high-def TV to shame: One moment, we’re straddling lava flowing from a Hawaiian volcano; the next, we’re watching thousands of glowworms light up a New Zeal
and cave. . . . Peppered throughout is advice to live by, stuff worth scribbling down and posting on your inspiration board for when that dark cloud rolls in.”
—Elle
“Eat, Pray, Love meets Up in the Air in this engaging novel about a woman whose craving for adventure (and jerk of a boyfriend) sends her flying.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“A collection of delicately framed and delightful vignettes. . . . Readers will feel like they too are touring the world.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Pam] philosophizes with girlfriends, mystics, and old lovers on all life’s usual questions in a refreshingly witty and bold manner. . . . In controlled, elegant prose, [Houston] imbues each pithy chapter with unifying lyricism. . . . Unapologetic and empowering, Houston’s book hammers home the idea that if you don’t have problems, you probably aren’t living.”
—Katharine Frank, Booklist, starred review
“Whether it’s truth or fiction, [Houston’s] candor is a real treat; she can throw in down and dirty sex talk as easily as ‘pass the salt.’ . . . The redoubtable Pam Houston takes us on an enjoyable ride—around the world—the one we all live in as well as her own unusual interior states.”
—Shelf Awareness
“My love for Pam Houston runs deep. Really deep. . . . I’ve yet to read something of hers without walking away in awe of her talent and the depth of her understanding. . . . And the language! Oh, how Houston knows her way around a sentence. . . . Contents May Have Shifted is unconventional in format, but the issues and questions and longings at its heart are universal. Houston plays with narrative enough to keep things interesting but not so much that the book becomes more about form than function, making it work as well for readers who come in search of story as for those who come looking for art. It is awesome, period, and sure to be on my ‘best of 2012’ list.”
—Rebecca Joines Schinsky, The Book Lady’s Blog
“A driving kinetic energy . . . keeps the reader whirling as Pam turns an observant and critical eye on herself, her relationship, and her country. . . . Houston is as adept a writer as she is an adventurer. And it’s her writing with its startling images of the natural world that set this book apart from the rest.”
—Erika Recordon, Oregonian
“Houston’s writing is poetic and descriptive, bringing readers along for a ride. . . . Readers will root for Houston and hope that the destination will be worthy of her journey. . . . Entertaining.”
—Leslie Doran, Durango Herald
“[Houston’s] witty thoughts on people and life really entertain. After the first chapter, readers will recognize what a treat it is to travel for free.”
—Melanie Smith, Bookreporter
“Pam Houston was an early master of the art of rendering fiercely independent, brilliant women in love with the wrong men. . . . That characterization holds true for Pam, the narrator of Houston’s latest novel, Contents May Have Shifted. . . . Quietly funny, poetic, and authentic—a thoroughly rewarding trip.”
—Sarah Norris, Barnes & Noble Review
“Brazenly challenges the lines between fiction and non-fiction.”
—Wallace Baine, Santa Cruz Sentinel
“Contents has the voice of a more reflective and analytical Houston, one who has lived and written like a motherfucker . . . but who now wants to love a lot and maybe not leave quite so much.”
—Emma Eisenberg, Full Stop
“In her new novel . . . [Houston] showcases her wiser, more mature voice as she drops the reader into locales as far-flung as Alaska, Bhutan, California and Durango, Colo.”
—Libby Cowels, Columbus Dispatch
“Read[s] like the best-written diary you could ever happen upon.”
—Caramie Schnell, Vail Daily
“More than a compilation of short stories about travel, Pam Houston’s Contents May Have Shifted is a clear and thoughtful expression of the human relationship with the world. . . . Strong minded, lovely and thoughtful.”
—Livi Whitaker, Deseret News
“Mesmerizing. . . . Houston once again proves noteworthy. . . . Contents May Have Shifted is just as honest as her popular Cowboys Are My Weakness, with even more experience and clarity behind it.”
—Wolf Schneider, ABQ Arts and Entertainment
“Houston . . . is a master at taking the facts of events, people and places she’s encountered, and creating characters that resonate with the truth about all of our lives.”
—Jennifer Haupt, Psychology Today
“Pam Houston writes . . . like a modern-day Jane Austen. . . . Excels at dropping the reader right into the scene with precise and visceral details.”
—Erica Olsen, High Country News
“In a book packed with world travelers in search of the sublime, Houston . . . echoes Vonnegut by illustrating how we’re on this planet to eat, drink and try to discover a way to be merry.”
—Spectrum Culture
Copyright © 2012 by Pam Houston
All rights reserved
First published as a Norton paperback 2013
Lyrics from “War,” Words and Music by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong © 1970 (Renewed 1998) Jobete Music Co., Inc., All Rights Controlled and Administered by EMI Blackwood Music Inc. on behalf of Stone Agate Music (a Division of Jobete Music Co., Inc.). All Rights Reserved, International Copyright Secured, Used by Permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
Lyrics from “Theologians,” Words by Jeff Tweedy, Music by Jeff Tweedy, Chris Girard and Mikael Jorgensen © 2004 Words Ampersand Music (BMI), Chaotic-goodmusic (ASCAP), Poeyfarre Songs (BMI), Pear Blossom Music (BMI) and Jorgenstormusic (ASCAP)/Administered by Bug Music. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
Excerpt from “Armed, Luminous” from Riding Westward by Carl Phillips. Copyright © 2006 by Carl Phillips. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830
Book design by Chris Welch
Production manager: Anna Oler
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Houston, Pam.
Contents may have shifted : a novel / Pam Houston. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-393-08265-4
1. Life change events—Fiction. 2. Travel—Fiction.
3. Self-acceptance—Fiction. 4. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.O8725C66 2012
813’.54—dc23
2011042403
ISBN 978-0-393-34348-9 pbk.
ISBN 978-0-393-08292-0 ebook
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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