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 start a discussion for Fallen Land:
1. What is the significance of the book's title, "Fallen Land"? Consider that the setting is immediately after America's brutal Civil War. How is that struggle reflected in the action of the book and, metaphorically, in the title?
2. Who seemed to commit the greater atrocities: Sherman's organized troops in his orchestrated "March to the Sea"? Or the disorganized bands of looters, who simply took advantage of the mayhem in the nearly defeated South, pillaging and plundering at will?
3. Talk about the two young characters, Callum and Ava. How would you describe them? What prompts Callum to risk all and return to Ava?
4. Reiver, the horse—he's almost mythical, as is the beauty of the land itself. What might Taylor Brown be getting at by pitting a magical steed and an almost "unearthly" natural setting against the brutality of humankind?
5. The young couple depends on the kindnesses of strangers. Talk about some of the characters who aided Callum and Ava along their journey.
6. Callum wonders, at one point, if something evil has implanted itself in him...
if something mean had slipped into him. Something vicious. For the first time, he touched the pale worm of scar growing along the side of his head, still tender above his dead ear.
Has he been corrupted by his association with the Colonel and his marauders? And why might the author have him touch his "still tender" scar? What's the symbolic meaning there?
7. Comparisons are being made between this book and both Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy and, especially, Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. Have you read any of those books? If so, what parallels exist between them and Taylor Brown's Fallen Land?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, feel free to use these LitLovers questions...online of off...with attribution. Thanks.)