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 get a discussion started for The Saturday Wife:
1. What's to like about Delilah...anything? How would you describe her? If you can't identify with the heroine, is it possible to enjoy a book? If so, how? Or...do you actually like Delilah?
2. What about the good rabbi? Some find it difficult to sympathize with his passivity in the face of his wife. What do you think?
3. How do Delilah's high school experiences affect her ethical and spiritual development? Think about those experiences in light of the social pressures many teenage girls face.
4. Talk about how Orthodox Judaism views the role of women? Do those attitudes and practices explain, perhaps even excuse, Delilah's actions?
5. Why was the Swallow Lake synagogue blacklisted from the Orthodox community? What does that banishment say about the congregants...or about the tenets of Orthodox Judaism?
6. What is Ragen getting at in this book? What aspects of the Jewish faith is she satirizing? How, for instance, has the author used names in the novel to further her satire?
7. Talk about the Shammanovs and their over-the-top bar mitzvah. At what point did your sham-o-meter kick in...when did you become suspicious? Or did you?
8. Do you agree with this excerpt from the book's end?
Fences just gave certain people the urge to climb over or crawl under. FORBIDDEN, KEEP OUT! was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. If you thought you might get away with it... then fences simply become a welcome challenge.
9. Does Delilah learn anything by the end of the novel?
10. Did you learn anything—or gain insights into Orthodox Judaism? What did you find most interesting, surprising, or disturbing?
11. Talk about parts of the book you found funny.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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