Guide for Reading Groups

(continued)

14. How would you characterize Beth’s understanding of faith in the last chapter? What do you think Flannery O’Connor meant when she said Christ was “the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of [one’s] mind”?   

15. How would you characterize Beth as a narrator? Does your perception of her change at different stages of her life?

16. Look at the Acknowledgements Page. What was the effect of hearing various points of view about what happened to Geoff?

17. How is this memoir a study in the problem of truth?

18. What remains unspoken here? In selecting the information for this particular story in her life, what kinds of stories and information does it seem Beth left out?

19.  Beth published this book after the death of her parents.  Do you think she could have published it while they were alive?  If so, how do you think each would have reacted to Beth's sharing this story?

20.  Good memoirs often rekindle your own personal memories.  What memories were sparked for you?  How does your own upbringing and adulthood correspond to Beth's?  

21. How do you read the final paragraph? Does it make sense in your own life?