Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for According to Queeney:
1. Why might Bainbridge have opened her novel with the autopsy of Johnson? Why not set that scene at the end? What was she hoping to achieve, do you suppose?
2. Elsewhere than in this novel, Johnson admitted that Hester Thrale "soothed 20 years of a life radically wretched." It is their relationship that is at the center of the book. What is the nature of that relationship? Would you say their attraction is based more on need than love (then again, are the two mutually exclusive)? What do the two need from each other...is one more needy than the other? In what way do they satisfy one each other...or do they?
3. How would you describe Hester? How is she revealed through Queeney's remarks?
4. What torments Samuel Johnson—physically and spiritually? Bainbridge hints at his sadomasochism. Where is it in evidence?
5. In Mrs. Thrale's Anecdotes, Johnson said that "Melancholy & otherwise insane People are always sensual; the misery of their Minds naturally enough forces them to recur for Comfort to their Bodies." What exactly does he mean...and do you agree with that observation? Can Johnson find comfort within his own body?
6. How do you account for the cruel letter Johnson wrote to Hester upon her soon to be marriage to Gabriel Piozzi?
7. How are the entries from Johnson's Dictionary related to the chapters they head.
8. Bainbridge strives to hold close to her source material without being obvious. Does she achieve that goal—is she able to meld the historical with the fictional? Or is there some awkwardness in writing?
9. What do you make of Queeney—one of the most intriguing characters in the book. (She has also intrigued Patrick O' Brian includes her in parts of his Master and Commander series.) What makes Queeney so interesting...and why is she such a difficult child, especially toward her mother?
10. The book's title is "According to Queeney," which suggests that we're getting a truthful picture of the great Samuel Johnson. That truth is based on a first-hand witness—who happens to be a young girl. Is Queeney's account objective? Is she to be believed, especially when some of her accounts contradict what comes before? What might Bainbridge be getting at regarding the fallibility of memory?
11. There are mysteries within this story. Point out some of the unexplainable events that take place...things for which there are no answers...and how Johnson struggles to maintain rationality throughout. What might Bainbridge be saying about the attempt to pin life down to some sort of scientific, rational exactitude.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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