Kept (Scott) - Discussion Questions

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 start a discussion for The Kept:

1. How would you describe Elspeth Howell? In the book's very first line, we learn that she has committed sins. How egregious are those sins? Are you able to muster sympathy for Elspeth? Why or why not? To what extent does she change, if at all, by the novel's end?

2. Motherhood is a major concern of the The Kept. How is it explored in the novel? What kind of mother is Elspeth?

3. Caleb is bent on avenging his family's death. What makes Caleb so dangerous in his obsession? Would an older, more mature Caleb be more judicious? Why doesn't Elspeth restrain him?

4. Describe Jorah, husband to Elspeth and father to Caleb. What was his effect on both mother and son? How has his death changed each of them and their relationship with one another?

5. What role does religious faith play in this novel? Why do mother and son reject religion and come, instead, to see themselves as outcasts and sinners? Are they?

6. Talk about the Elm Inn. What happens there that dissuades Caleb from pursuing his crusade? What does he come to understand?

7. To what extent does destiny pervade this novel? Do the characters have any choice in shaping their lives...or are they completely at the whim of a rather harsh fate?

8. What kind of world—upstate New York in the late 19th century—does James Scott present in The Kept?

9. Have you read Cormac McCarthy's The Road. If so, are there parallels between the two books? Where do they differ?

10. Talk about the racial and gender prejudices exposed in The Kept and the way those prejudices underpin the novel's violence.

11. How do the revelations exposed later in the novel change your understanding of the book's opening scene?

12. Is this book simply too grim and brutal to read? Or are there redeeming qualities—hope, for instance—in the story?

13. Does the novel end satisfactorily? Do you envision a different, or better, ending?

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

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