Everybody Has Everything (Onstad) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
1. How do you understand the meaning of the novel’s title?

2. Consider the epigraph the author has chosen. What do you think she hopes you to take from it? How does is relate to the novel?

3. There are many poetic and musical references in the novel, and one song in particular plays a key role in the narrative. What do the various quotations tell us about the different characters in the novel who recall or recognize them? What do you think the author wishes to say through the use of that one key song? About Ana’s life, about James’s life, about life more generally?

4. Is this a particularly “urban” novel? Why or why not?

5. “How did you know?” Ana asks Sarah on page 57, about wanting to have a child. Whose side of the ensuing exchange made the most sense to you? Why could Ana not be honest with Sarah about when, or if, she herself “knew”?

6. How does James’s behaviour upend (or conform to) conventional notions of masculinity? At work? At home? With Finn? In what ways does Ana challenge the concept of femininity? How do these shifting gender roles affect the story?

7. At certain points, both Ana and James find themselves acutely aware of their age. What triggers this awareness in each of them? What does this awareness mean to each of them?

8. Neither Ana’s nor James’s mother quite fits the picture of an “ordinary mother.” Can you see people you know in either of them? In what ways?

9. Is it still a social taboo for a woman to resist motherhood? How does Ana experience society’s attitudes toward women who aren’t mothers? Is it possible for a female character to be sympathetic if she rejects motherhood?

10. How does the sudden presence of a child in James and Ana’s relationship foment marital discord, and flirtations with infidelity – or does it? To what extent is their marriage affected by parenthood?

11. What do you make of Ana’s flirtation with Charlie? What attracts her to him?

12. The final scene of the novel involves James telling Finn (and Ana) a story. How does this closing story-within-a-story relate to the novel as a whole?

13. What do you think the next chapter in life will be for Ana, for James, for Finn, for Sarah?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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