Chanesyville Incident (Bradley) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
(These questions were kindly offered to LitLovers by Gail Golden, who developed them for The BFF Book Club. Thank you, Gail.)

1. In what year is the novel set in the first chapter?& How did you feel about the way that the stories unfolded as the book progressed? If this book had been written in 2015, how might the story between John and Judith have been different?

2. Why is it significant that John is an historian? How does that help to connect him to his father, Moses Washington, especially after Moses’s death?

3. What is the significance of coffee and toddies in this novel? How does the choice of drinks help the reader to understand the progress of Judith’s and John’s relationship?

4. Do we ever really know the actual names of the Town and the County? Are the names important? Why or why not?

5. John shows anger throughout the book. How do the foci of his anger change as the story progresses, or how does it become clearer to the reader the focus of the anger?

6. Share one of the vignettes that help us to understand why John felt so hostile toward the town in which he grew up.

7. Discuss the role of Old Jack Crawley in this story.

8. Compare the home of Old Jack and the one that Moses built for himself. Compare the two sides of the Hill on which the Blacks in the Town lived.

9. Describe the evolution of C. K. Washington which led up to the “incident.” Did that vignette help you to understand why Moses took his own life? Do you think that it helped John to understand?

10. If you had been one of the thirteen involved in the “incident,” would you have chosen the way that they did? Why do you think that John and Moses had such a hard time finding out about the “incident?”

11. What was the significance at the end of the book of John’s resealing the folio that Moses had left him? Why did he burn up all of his notes? He says that he is leaving the folio intact for anyone in the future who might look into it. Who might that be?

12. Did this book give you any new knowledge/revelations about slavery, the slave trade, runners, and/or the Underground Railroad? Has the book changed your previous notions about PA or any of the other states mentioned in the book?

13. Pick one minor character in the book and discuss him/her and how he/she fit into the centuries-old story told in the book.

14. Is there a particular episode in the novel that you would like to discuss?
(Questions prepared and submitted by Gail Golden of The BFF Book Club.)

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