Discussion Questions
1. There is a great deal of brand-name dropping in this novel (e.g. Mercedes, Jetta), especially in scenes involving Peck and Natalia. Discuss Boyle’s satiric portrait of our culture’s conspicuous consumption. What is the relationship of designer brands and personal identity established in the novel?
2. “Base identifier” is a wonderfully suggestive phrase that is repeated throughout the novel. What are the base identifiers, in all senses of this phrase, of the main characters? How do the characters understand selfhood? How does the novel dramatize the fragile nature of personal identity?
3. Dana is post-lingually deaf (i.e. she was not born deaf), who refused surgical attempts to restore her hearing. Discuss her condition and her reasons for maintaining it. How does she understand her condition? How does Bridger; her mother? How does it contribute thematically to the novel?
4. Often in literature, film, or television, a character who doesn’t necessarily have many redeeming qualities will evoke pathos nonetheless. Although Peck Wilson is a man capable of brutal, calculated violence, he certainly arouses our interest, and at points, our sympathy. What was your opinion of Peck?
5. At four different points in the novel, Dana recites favorite poems to herself: Wallace Stevens’s “Peter Quince at the Clavier,” a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edgar Allen Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” and Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.” What is the significance of each of these poems to the narrative?
6. While ostensibly a road novel, Talk Talk is really a bicoastal novel. Discuss Boyle’s juxtaposition of East Coast and West Coast culture. What are Peck’s attitudes toward each? Do they resonate with you?
7. Sandman’s corruption of an Army recruiting slogan into a motto for identity thieves (“Be anyone you can be”) is one example of how America’s obsession with self- reinvention is parodied. What other examples come to mind? What do you think the novel says about our capacity, or lack thereof, to reinvent ourselves?
8. The scene at Peck’s mother’s house is both humorous and deeply disturbing. The naïve Natalia, full of the expectations and anxieties of a future daughter-in-law, is finally going to meet the mother of the man she hopes to marry, the man whose name she doesn’t even know. Did Boyle intend for this to be a comic scene? Why do you think he chose to omit Peck’s mother entirely from the scene?
9. Discuss the confrontation at the end of the novel. Why did Peck suddenly lose his nerve, the only instance in the entire novel? How do you interpret Peck’s answer to Dana’s seemingly simple question: “What do you want?” What is it about the ending that surprised you the most?
10. Dana and Bridger’s relationship is unusual, but like most couples their problems are generally problems of communication. What makes them unique and typical as a couple? Why does Bridger decide to join Dana on this perilous journey to find her identity thief? What happens to their relationship along the way and why does it ultimately fail?
11. In some respects Talk Talk is a variant of the doppelganger novel, a long-established literary convention in which the protagonist is haunted by the apparition of his or her double. Compare Talk Talk with other classic examples of the genre, such as Dostoyevsky’s The Double, Nikolai Gogol’s “The Nose,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson.” Do you think Boyle has successfully updated this literary form for the twenty-first century?
12. Dana and Peck share a fascination with language, which isn’t matched by their respective partners. See for instance Peck’s recollection of the word “plebeian” and Dana’s interest in the etymology of “dis.” Besides this, do they have any other traits in common? At the end of the novel when they confront one another they are said to be “united, wedded.” What is it that unites them?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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