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 Curtains:
1. Talk about Tom Jokinen's decision to take a break from his full-time job and become an apprentice in undertaking. What possessed to him to do so...and why that specific field? What do you think of the decision? Had it had been your spouse, would you have supported the move?
2. Do you find the book's specific descriptions of preparing the body—including cremation and embalming, as well as makeup and dressing—grisly, interesting, humorous?
3. Speaking of humor, locate some of the book's funnier passages. What makes them funny? Do you find the humor disrespectful toward a serious, often tragic subject? Is it macabre? Or do you find it refreshingly irreverent?
4. Jokinen says at one point. "We're all roughly equal...200 cubic inches, or 5 pounds, of mineral powder, mostly calcium phosphate...." How does that statement make you feel? In what way does it reflect a deeper philosophical view about the meaning of life? Are we all the same? Is that what our lives ultimately boil down to (excuse the metaphor)?
5. Talk about the differences Jokinen finds between the undertaking profession...and the funeral industry. Why the disconnect? Were you outraged by some of the industry practices Jokinen wrote about? If so, what in particular?
6. Neil Bardal tells the author that "the traditional funeral is gone, and it's never coming back." How are cremation and other practices changing the industry? What are some of the newer trends? How do Jokinen and others see the grief business in the future, especially as baby-boomers age?
7. Speaking of cremation, why are more people choosing it over the traditional casket? What about you—what are your desires?
8. Overall, as he came away from his time in the funeral business, what was Jokinen's attitude? What is yours...after having read his book?
9. What (if any) are your own personal experiences in organizing a funeral and making the choices one has to make at a very difficult time?
10. What functions do funerals serve? Why do we have them? Are they purely religious sacraments...or something more?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)