Perfect Mother (Molloy) - 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 PERFECT WIFE … then take off on your own:

1. How well does Aimee Molloy describe the issues of first-time motherhood—exhaustion and isolation, to name only two? If you're a mother do you relate to (even remember?) all the concerns and anxieties talked about in The Perfect Mother?

2. What do we learn about the various members of the May Mothers early on, before Midas goes missing? As chapters shift among various perpsectives, what else is revealed about each of them? How would you describe the individual characters? Is there a particular one you admire more than others …or find more interesting ...or more problematic?

3. Talk about the way the police bungle the investigation.

4. In an online interview, Aimee Molloy talks about her own, real-life support group, September Babies, and her belief that if something happened to one of the children, "all the women [would be] smearing our faces with war paint and lighting our torches and going out into the streets of Brooklyn.… We would not rest." Do you have a devoted group of friends like that—whose members have each other's backs?

5. Whom did you first suspect? How does Molloy use misdirection to put readers off the scent? Were you surprised by the twist at the end?

6. What's the significance of the book's title? Who is "the perfect mother"?

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

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