Awkward Age (Segal) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Awkward Age…then take off on your own:

1. The big question in this novel is what do parents owe their children? How much should they sacrifice of their own happiness to keep their children happy?

2. Describe the civil war in the Alden-Fuller household. Who despises whom...and why?

3. Do your sympathies lie with any one in particular? Whom do you find more at fault—or perhaps less at fault—than the others? Or are they all equally to blame? Does the shift in perspective—allowing you to go inside each character's mind—make a difference in how you view them?

4. When Julia finds out about Gwen and Nathan, she is enraged. But her daughter stubbornly refuses to put her mother's needs first, pointing out that Julia had not put her needs first. Where do you stand in this argument?

5. Talk about that mother-daughter relationship. Julia considers Gwen as "her body's work: to shield this chld from harm, lifelong." Also, the two are like "hostages long held together" but now giving way to a widening "gulf" between them. As a parent or a child, can you relate to their confusion, anger, and pain?

6. Trace how the characters change over the course of the novel. Julia, for instance, "knew life to be a series of calamities," while James is an optimist. What happens to their outlooks? How do the characters mature or attain a new level of understanding? Or…perhaps they don't.

7. Discuss the significance of the title: "The Awkward Age." Is it ironic…or descriptive? While the phrase usually refers to adolescence, how might it relate to adulthood?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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