Girls Burn Brighter
Shobha Roa, 2018
Flatiron Books
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250074256
Summary
An electrifying debut novel about the extraordinary bond between two girls driven apart by circumstance but relentless in their search for one another.
Poornima and Savitha have three strikes against them: they are poor, they are ambitious, and they are girls.
After her mother's death, Poornima has very little kindness in her life. She is left to care for her siblings until her father can find her a suitable match.
So when Savitha enters their household, Poornima is intrigued by the joyful, independent-minded girl. Suddenly their Indian village doesn't feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond arranged marriage.
But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend.
Her journey takes her into the darkest corners of India's underworld, on a harrowing cross-continental journey, and eventually to an apartment complex in Seattle.
Alternating between the girls' perspectives as they face ruthless obstacles, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who never lose the hope that burns within.a (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Shobha Rao moved to the U.S. from India at the age of seven. She is the winner of the 2014 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction, awarded by Nimrod International Journal. She has been a resident at Hedgebrook and is the recipient of the Elizabeth George Foundation fellowship. Her story "Kavitha and Mustafa" was chosen by T.C. Boyle for inclusion in the Best American Short Stories 2015. She lives in San Francisco. Girls Burn Brighter (2018) is her debut novel. (From the publihser.)
Book Reviews
Shobha Rao writes cleanly and eloquently about women who, without their brightness, might have been left to die in their beds. She writes them into life, into existence, into the light of day.
Los Angeles Times
A confident debut novel set in India and America about the unbreakable bond between two girls. From the menacing nooks of India's underworld to the streets of Seattle, this searing novel traces the nuances of adulthood and the enduring power of childhood bonds.
Chicago Review
Incandescent.… A searing portrait of what feminism looks like in much of the world.
Vogue
A definite must-read for readers who love authors like Nadia Hashimi and Khaled Hosseini.
Bustle
A treat for Ferrante fans, exploring the bonds of friendship and how female ambition beats against the strictures of poverty and patriarchal societies.
Huffington Post
[S]tirring.… [E]motional urgency will pull readers along. Vivid depictions of contemporary Indian culture and harrowing accounts of human trafficking…will leave readers, and book clubs, with much to ponder and discuss.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Incredible storytelling immerses readers in the world of Poornima and Savitha, two poor girls from India.… Without descending into sentimentality, Rao relates this story with real power and humanity.… [N]ot to be missed. —Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH
Library Journal
(Starred review.) This powerful, heart-wrenching novel and its two unforgettable heroines offer an extraordinary example of the strength that can be summoned in even the most terrible situations.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Enchanting… The resplendent prose captures the nuances and intensity of two best friends on the brink of an uncertain and precarious adulthood… An incisive study of a friendship's unbreakable bond.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the novel's title. What does it mean to you? How is the experience of being a girl portrayed here? Did you find it eye-opening?
2. Why do you think the author chose to begin with the story about the old woman and the temple doors? What tone does that set for the rest of the novel?
3. How is friendship depicted in these pages? Why do you think Poornima and Savitha are so drawn to each other? What qualities do they share, and what qualities distinguish each of them? Do they change over the course of the novel?
4. Savitha tells Poornima about encountering an owl on the road in Indravalli. The owl tells Savitha,
If two people want to be together, they'll find a way. They'll forge a way. It may seem ludicrous, even stupid, to work so hard at something that is, truly, a matter of chance, completely arbitrary, such as staying with someone—as if "with" and "apart" have meaning in and of themselves … but that's the thing with you humans. You think too much, don't you?
Discuss the owl's words. What does this novel have to say about willpower versus fate or coincidence?
5. Poornima and Savitha have very different relationships with their fathers. How do those relationships shape their childhoods and their worldviews? Do you feel any sympathy or understanding toward Poornima's father?
6. Savitha's last words to Poornima are "I'm the one with wings." What do you think she means by that? How are bird and flight imagery used throughout the novel?
7. On her wedding night, Poornima remembers a story from childhood, when she stole a candy and her mother told her to never take what isn't hers. She reflects, "Don't you see, Amma, if only I had taken the things I wasn't meant to take. If only I'd had the courage." Are there examples after this moment in her story when she does take what she isn't supposed to? How does she exercise control over her own life?
8. In her husband's house, after she has been terribly burned, Poornima imagines the banks of the Krishna river:
When she closed her eyes, there were the saris drying on the opposite shore. Every color, fluttering in the river breeze, fields of wildflowers.
Saris and weaving play an important role throughout the novel. What do they represent for Poornima and Savitha? Why does Savitha guard the fragment of cloth from Poornima's sari so closely?
9. Discuss Savitha's thoughts on bananas:
Yogurt rice with a banana was like life, simple, straightforward, with a beginning and an end, while the other—the banana split—was like death, complex, infused with a kind of mystery that was beyond Savitha's comprehension, and every bite, like every death, dumbfounding.
Do you think her views on life and death make her more resilient and able to face adversity?
10. Savitha tells Poornima a story about a crow and an elephant, which Poornima thinks about often as she is searching for her friend. Savitha says,
Here's what matters. Understand this, Poornima: that it's better to be swallowed whole than in pieces. Only then can you win. No elephant can be too big. Only then no elephant can do you harm.
What do you think she means? Do you think Poornima and Savitha are swallowed whole by their experiences? Why or why not?
11. Savitha and Poornima both have complicated relationships with Mohan. Why do you think they are both drawn to him? Do you find him sympathetic?
12. Poornima finds a collection of poetry in Mohan's coat, and reads the most dog-eared page, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." When she discusses the poem with Mohan, he claims "it's about the struggle to find courage" and that his favorite lines are:
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare," and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair.
Mohan tells Poornima they are both like Prufrock, but Poornima disagrees: "No, she thought, you're wrong. You're wrong. He's nothing like me." Why do you think they have such different reactions to the poem? How is courage portrayed in this novel?
13. Discuss the two stories Savitha hears from the men with whom she hitchhikes: the multi-generational story that ends in the propane gas explosion, and the story about the daughter who is half black and half white. Why do you think the men decided to share those particular stories with Savitha, especially knowing that she can't understand English? What do they add to the novel as a whole?
14. Girls Burn Brighter addresses some of the most difficult issues facing women and girls today: rape, domestic violence, prostitution, sex trafficking, and abuse. Did Poornima's and Savitha's stories change the way you think about these issues? Did you find the novel's ultimate message to be at all optimistic or hopeful? Why or why not?
15. The novel's final scene is left ambiguous: we don't actually see if Poornima and Savitha reunite. How did you feel about the ending? What do you imagine happening to Poornima and Savitha next? Do you think there is the possibility of a new life for them in America?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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The Priory of the Orange Tree
Samantha Shannon, 2019
Bloomsbury Publishing
848 pp.
ISBN-13: 978-1635570298
Summary
A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.
The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years.
Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.
Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.
Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1991
• Where—West London, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Oxford University
• Currently—lives in London
Samantha Shannon studied English Language and Literature at St. Anne's College, Oxford. The Bone Season, the first in a seven-book series, was a New York Times bestseller and the inaugural Today Book Club selection. Film and TV rights were acquired by the Imaginarium Studios. The Mime Order followed in 2015 and The Song Rising in 2017. The Priory of the Orange Tree came in 2019. Her work has been translated into 26 languages.
In 2012 the Women of the Future Awards shortlisted her for The Young Star Award. She lives in London, England. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[S]atisfying…with court intrigue, travel through dangerous lands, fantastical religions, blood, and love.… Unfortunately… [the] tempo… hampers… of an otherwise well-planned and well-executed ending. Nonetheless, a very capable epic fantasy.
Publishers Weekly
[A] fascinating epic fantasy set in a rich, well-developed world. Shannon has created fertile narrative ground, and the state of affairs at the end of this novel certainly leaves room for new stories that will make further use of the excellent setting.
New York Journal of Books
(Starred review) Shannon deftly explores the divides between religion, custom, and territory. This extraordinary saga includes heroism, romance, friendship, pirates, plague, diplomacy, and, of course, dragons. A well-drawn feminist fantasy with broad appeal. —Anna Mickelson
Booklist
(Starred review) [A]n entirely fresh and addicting tale is born.… A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
Kirkus Reviews
[A] clever combination of Elizabethan England, the legend of St. George, and Eastern dragon lore, with a dash of Tolkien… [and] enough detailed world-building, breath-taking action and sweeping romance to remind epic fantasy readers of why they love the genre in the first place.
Shelf Awareness
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, 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)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The House on Fripp Island
Rebecca Kauffman, 2020
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780358041528
Summary
A taut, page-turning novel of secrets and strife. When two families—one rich, one not—vacation together off the coast of South Carolina, little do they know that someone won't be returning home.
Fripp Island, South Carolina is the perfect destination for the wealthy Daly family: Lisa, Scott, and their two girls.
For Lisa’s childhood friend, Poppy Ford, the resort island is a world away from the one she and Lisa grew up in—and when Lisa invites Poppy's family to join them, how can a working-class woman turn down an all-expenses paid vacation for her husband and children?
But everyone brings secrets to the island, distorting what should be a convivial, relaxing summer on the beach. Lisa sees danger everywhere—the local handyman can't be allowed near the children, and Lisa suspects Scott is fixated on something, or someone, else.
Poppy watches over her husband John and his routines with a sharp eye. It's a summer of change for all of the children: Ryan Ford who prepares for college in the fall, Rae Daly who seethes on the brink of adulthood, and the two youngest, Kimmy Daly and Alex Ford, who are exposed to new ideas and different ways of life as they forge a friendship of their own.
Those who return from this vacation will spend the rest of their lives trying to process what they witnessed, the tipping points, moments of violence and tenderness, and the memory of whom they left behind. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—rural Northeastern Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., Manhattan School of Music; M.F.A., New York University
• Currently—lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia
Rebecca Kauffman is originally from rural northeastern Ohio. She received her B.A. in Classical Violin Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, but as an inherently shy person she decided a career in music was not for her. After graduating, Kauffman stayed in New York City working in public relations. After a few years, she moved to Buffalo, New York, where she worked in a restaurant and taught music.
In her spare time Kaufmann turned to writing, something she had loved in her childhood—penning small books with help from her mother, who illustrated and laminated the finished product. As a young adult, she immersed herself again in fiction and realized she had found her calling.
Kauffman sent the first 30 pages of a novel she was working to New York University in the hopes of being accepted into its creative writing program. Although the manuscript was later trashed—"total garbage" as she referred to it in an NPR interview—her application was accepted, and she attained an M.F.A.
Kauffman's debut novel, Another Place You've Never Been, was published in 2016. Two years later came The Gunners, a book placed on many "must read," "eagerly awaited," and "a best book of 2018" lists. She published The House on Fripp Island in 2020.
She currently lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. (From various online sources, including WMRA Public Radio.)
Book Reviews
Page-turner pacing…. Combustible…. The tensions between predators and prey—and how quickly one can become the other—haunt the novel, from its ominous beginning to its heartrending conclusion. But Kauffman also deftly crafts moments of great tenderness and light throughout, reminding us that memory endures and life perseveres, even after a harrowing and grievous loss.
Charleston Post and Courier
The tensions between the haves and the have-nots offer an insight into contemporary America…. In watchful prose by turns powerful and delicate, the action builds to an event as inevitable as it was unpredictable. Gripping.
Sunday Times
Suspenseful…. While the fault lines… allow for plenty of tart observations on marital disenchantment, Kaufmann spins a secondary, far more disconcerting story about the toxic power of suspicion and rumour. A smart summer read.
Daily Mail (UK)
Kauffman’s keen, atmospheric follow-up to The Gunners explores class, friendship, and dark family secrets…inevitably, events spiral to a shocking conclusion. Kauffman’s characters leap off the page…. Readers will devour this suspenseful summer drama.
Publishers Weekly
Our assumptions about whose tensions, desires, rages, and shy longings might erupt into murder are provoked and reversed right up until the final pages, when the mystery of Fripp Island is revealed...An entertaining and ultimately tender book.
Kirkus Reviews
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 HOUSE OF FRIPP ISLAND ... then take off on your own:
1. What is wrong with the Lisa and Scott Daly's marriage? How does their relationship compare to Poppy and John Ford's?
2. Talk about the role that class plays in this novel—a well-off couple hosting a not-so-well-off family. How do the differences in wealth drive the story?
3. Why does Rebecca Kauffman open her novel with the ghost of a member of one of the families? What is accomplished by "giving away" the ending? Why not just tell the story chronologically?
4. Of the 10 characters in this novel, which ones do you care for most, identify with, or… perhaps dislike?
5. How do Lisa's insecurities affect her daughter's behavior?
6. Everything seems normal at first, relaxed and untroubled, but the normality is not to last. What are the initial signs of unraveling?
7. All the characters hold some sort of secret or inner feelings of jealousy, resentment, suspicion. Dissect the emotional turmoil of the characters.
8. Poppy makes references to the income disparity?
It bothered Lisa that people without money seemed to think they could squawk on and on about people with money, all the ways their lives seemed so different and strange, whereas Lisa would never dream of breathing a word about their lives or homes.
Is Lisa justified in her irritation? Is it possible for two childhood friends to maintain a close childhood relationship when one "marries up," creating a distinct class separation?
9. Were you surprised, even shocked, by the final revelation, the twist at the end?
10. What are your thoughts about the book's epilogue set years later? What does it add to the story?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Awkward Age
Francesca Segal, 2017
Penguin Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399576454
Summary
They've chosen the one thing that will make our family life impossible. It's genius really, when you think about it. It's the perfect sabotage.
Julia Alden has fallen deeply, unexpectedly in love. American obstetrician James is everything she didn't know she wanted—if only her teenage daughter, Gwen, didn't hate him so much.
Uniting two households is never easy, but when Gwen turns for comfort to James's seventeen-year-old son, Nathan, the consequences will test her mother's loyalty and threaten all their fragile new happiness.
This is a moving and powerful novel about the modern family: about starting over; about love, guilt, and generosity; about building something beautiful amid the mess and complexity of what came before.
It is a story about standing by the ones we love, even while they make mistakes. We would give anything to make our children happy. But how much should they ask? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1980
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—Costa First Novel Award (more below)
• Currently—lives in London, England
Francesca Segal is a British writer and author of two well regarded novels, The Innocents (2012) and The Awkward Age (2017). She is one of two daughters of Erich Segal, most widely known as the author of Love Story, the bestseller novel turned blockbuster movie staring Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal.
Born in London, Francesca was brought up between the UK and America, where her father taught Greek and Latin at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities. She returned to England to take her degree at St Hugh’s College, Oxford.
Since then, Segal has worked as a journalist and author. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Guardian, and Vogue (both UK and US), among others. She has been a features writer at Tatler, and for three years wrote the Debut Fiction column in The Observer.
Awards
For her first novel, The Innocents, Segal received the Costa First Novel Award, the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the Sami Rohr Prize, and a Betty Trask Award. She was also long-listed for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize). Segal lives in London. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved on 5/25/2017.)
Book Reviews
A great premise for a novel, and Segal handles it expertly.… [E]veryday family interactions—the deep, primal resentments played out over a bowl of porridge, or a shopping list—are observed warmly and yet with hawk-like precision.
Guardian (UK)
In Francesca Segal’s magnificent new novel The Awkward Age, romantic and parental love go head to head, stress-testing loyalties and bonds with heartbreaking consequences.… [A] narrative that’s never anything less than gripping.
Independent (UK)
[Explores] themes of non-nuclear family life, the everyday fractures and renovations inherent to relationships of any kind, amid moments of pitch-perfect comic tension.… Segal anticipates every care, concern and anxiety of an all-too-real cast: the complexities of parenthood and the differing methods of trying to prepare children for the world.
Financial Times (UK)
Segal is a sharp observer of the tribulations of teenage love and modern relationships.… [T]his book is a lively, quick-witted performance.
Sunday Times (UK)
Segal’s elegant second novel is an entertaining look at the messy business of trying to be a family in emotionally trying circumstances.… egal gives each [character] a chance to tell their side of the story in gossipy detail, revealing petty jealousies, self-interested justifications, wounded pride and sweet affection. Irresistible.
Mail on Sunday (UK)
Segal deftly unspools a disastrous but plausible scenario for [a] struggling new family, raising big questions about loyalty, love, and the dynamics between parents and child. Not to mention lovers: What do you do if you think your soulmate has raised a brat? This page-turner is witty, compassionate and wickedly astute.
People
Awkward is a perfect descriptor for this page-turning novel about an adult couple whose respective children from previous marriages unexpectedly strike up a romance in the midst of merging households.
InStyle
If you're craving drama, this book is for you!
Bustle
This observant comedy of manners about a contemporary blended family by the author of The Innocents is deepened by the author’s compassion for her self-deluded characters.… If adolescence is “fraught with awkwardness,” Segal ably demonstrates that adulthood is as well.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Love and romance in all their difficult, volatile combinations have no limits in this multigenerational dissection of the eternal conundrum of life: what brings us together can tear us apart.… [A] novel that surprises until the very end. —Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Readers who enjoyed…the works of Meg Wolitzer and Matthew Norman will adore this frank and unfiltered glimpse inside one family’s struggles and successes.
Booklist
(Starred review.) There are no clear answers here.… In finely wrought prose, with characters who seem to walk beside us and speak aloud, Segal's latest novel is a sympathetic portrait of the difficulties in finding love and raising teenagers.
Kirkus Reviews
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 Awkward Age…then take off on your own:
1. The big question in this novel is what do parents owe their children? How much should they sacrifice of their own happiness to keep their children happy?
2. Describe the civil war in the Alden-Fuller household. Who despises whom...and why?
3. Do your sympathies lie with any one in particular? Whom do you find more at fault—or perhaps less at fault—than the others? Or are they all equally to blame? Does the shift in perspective—allowing you to go inside each character's mind—make a difference in how you view them?
4. When Julia finds out about Gwen and Nathan, she is enraged. But her daughter stubbornly refuses to put her mother's needs first, pointing out that Julia had not put her needs first. Where do you stand in this argument?
5. Talk about that mother-daughter relationship. Julia considers Gwen as "her body's work: to shield this chld from harm, lifelong." Also, the two are like "hostages long held together" but now giving way to a widening "gulf" between them. As a parent or a child, can you relate to their confusion, anger, and pain?
6. Trace how the characters change over the course of the novel. Julia, for instance, "knew life to be a series of calamities," while James is an optimist. What happens to their outlooks? How do the characters mature or attain a new level of understanding? Or…perhaps they don't.
7. Discuss the significance of the title: "The Awkward Age." Is it ironic…or descriptive? While the phrase usually refers to adolescence, how might it relate to adulthood?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Italian Teacher
Tom Rachman, 2018
Penguin Publishing
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780735222694
Summary
A masterful novel about the son of a great painter striving to create his own legacy, by the bestselling author of The Imperfectionists.
Conceived while his father, Bear, cavorted around Rome in the 1950s, Pinch learns quickly that Bear's genius trumps all.
After Bear abandons his family, Pinch strives to make himself worthy of his father's attention—first trying to be a painter himself; then resolving to write his father's biography; eventually settling, disillusioned, into a job as an Italian teacher in London.
But when Bear dies, Pinch hatches a scheme to secure his father's legacy—and make his own mark on the world.
With his signature humanity and humor, Tom Rachman examines a life lived in the shadow of greatness, cementing his place among his generation's most exciting literary voices. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1974
• Where—London, England, UK
• Raised—Vancouver, Canada
• Education—B.A., University of Toronto; M.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in London
Tom Rachman was born in London and raised in Vancouver, Canada. A graduate of the University of Toronto and the Columbia School of Journalism, he has been a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, stationed in Rome. From 2006 to 2008, he worked as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. He lives in London.
The Imperfectionsists (2010) is his first novel; The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (2014) his second, followed by The Italian Teacher (2018). (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/09/2014.)
Book Reviews
The reliably excellent Rachman this time offers a nuanced, fascinating portrait of a celebrated painter looking ahead to his legacy.
Entertainment Weekly
Pencils down, brushes up: Rachman goes beyond the base coat with THE ITALIAN TEACHER, a portrait of a son his large-scale father.
Vanity Fair
(Starred review) [An] artful page-turner…. Spanning the 1950s to the present, the novel… makes for a satisfying examination of authorship and authenticity, and… how crafting an identity independent of one’s parents can be a lifelong, worthwhile project.
Publishers Weekly
long with the skewering of art-world and academic pretensions, there is humor, humanity, and compassion in Rachman’s writing. For most fiction readers.
Library Journal
(Starred review) A momentous drama of a volatile relationship and the fundamental will to survive.
Booklist
[P]oignant …[with] an ironic conclusion that also shimmers with love and regret.… A sensitive look at complicated relationships that's especially notable for the fascinatingly conflicted protagonist.
Kirkus Reviews
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 ITALIAN TEACHER … then take off on your own:
1. What was it like to grow up under the shadow of Bear Bavinsky? What was the damage imposed on his son, Pinch? How has Pinch emerge from his childhood and young adult years: what scars has he been nursing all these years? In other words, how would you describe Pinch? Do you find yourself sympathetic toward him … or perhaps a little frustrated by him?
2. What do you make of Bear—the father of 17 children who has sprinkled the world with his abandoned spouses and ashes of burned paintings? Of all the things he says and/or does to Pinch, which do you find the most egregious, the most damaging?
3. What role does Pinch's mother Natalie play in the family dynamics and throughout Pinch's life? What happens to her life as an artist? How would you describe Pinch's relationship with her?
4. Nattty tells Pinch at one point that "you need to be selfish as an artist—that's why it's so much harder for a woman." What do you make of her statement?
5. Follow-up to Question 4: in the end, who in the family proves to be the strongest?
6. Bear tells Pinch, "Nobody sees themselves." Cynical? Perceptive? What does he mean?
7. Of all of Bear's children, most of whom keep their distance from their father, Pinch is the one who works to maintain a relationship. Why? Over the years, how does the balance of power shift between father and son? Do you have sympathy for Bear at some point...at any point...or at no point?
8. Were you surprised, pleased, disappointed at the novel's ending? How has Pinch changed by the end … has he grown?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)