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1. Kit’s wife, Sandra, tells him, "I think you
need to move, I mean pry yourself free from a place that’s become
so familiar you simply can’t see it" (p. 22). Have you ever come to a
place in your life where you felt stuck? How did you resolve this?
2. Why do you think Daphne insists on keeping the name of Kit’s father a
secret? Whom is she protecting?
3. Daphne tells Kits that he "does not get to know everything" just
because he wants to. Do you think Daphne owes Kit the name of his
father?
4. If you were Kit, do you think you could/would have waited so long to
find your father? Do you think men and women have different attitudes
toward "finding" their lost family connections?
5. Describe Kit and Daphne’s relationship. How does this change
throughout the book?
6. Do you see any parallels between Kit’s relationship with Daphne and
Malachy’s relationship with Lucinda? If you read Three Junes,
what do you bring from that book about the latter relationship? Knowing
what you know from this book, do you think you’d feel differently about
either of those characters if you went back to reread Three Junes?
7. Daphne accepted Lucinda’s help with Kit for the first few years of
his life. What do you think about her cutting off that connection so
abruptly? Can you empathize with her reasons for doing so?
8. Lucinda has yearned for decades to reconnect with Kit. Do you think
she should have done that on her own, without waiting for him to take
the initiative? Or do you think the initiative always has to come from
the child/grandchild?
9. "Things that make sense don’t always make sense" (p. 40). Jasper says
this to Daphne in reference to her plan to move with Kit closer to her
school. Do you think she is already planning to leave that marriage, or
is Jasper missing important hints that he is already losing her?
10. What do you think about Daphne and Malachy’s relationship as
teenagers at the music camp? How do you think the culture of the camp
itself affects the way she feels about him?
11. Did you have a magical time or place in your life similar to that
summer?
12. Malachy is a central figure in this work, but we cannot know what he
felt or what he thought. How does this affect the people in the story?
What do you think about his complete removal of himself from Daphne and
Kit’s life—and his father’s tacit support of that distance?
13. Forgiveness is a prevalent theme. Discuss some of the characters who
need to give and seek forgiveness in the book. Are some of the "crimes"
they’ve committed unforgivable?
14. In your view, who has the most to forgive? Who most deserves
forgiveness? Who most needs it?
15. Lucinda admits to herself that she loved Malachy more than her other
children—but it’s clear they realize this. What do you think will
happen, in the future, as Malachy’s "lost" son is absorbed into the
family, especially after Lucinda’s death?
16. Lucinda gets mad at Zeke for hiding Malachy’s need to know of Kit,
and gets mad at Jonathan for hiding his homosexuality from Malachy as
well as from his parents. Do you think these secrets were justified?
17. At one point, a woman who was clearly a client of Lucinda’s at The
House confronts her on the street and tells her that Lucinda ruined her
life. What do you think about the work Lucinda did, inspired by her
faith, to help young single mothers have and raise babies on their own
in an era when they might have had other choices?
18. The Burnses’ barn, the Shed at the music camp, Jasper’s crow’s nest:
All of these structures hold meaning for the characters involved. Are
there places in your life that you feel as strongly about?
19. The character Fenno McLeod, the protagonist from Julia Glass’s
novel Three Junes, returns as a key point of view near the end of
the book. If you read that earlier novel, how does it feel to meet him
again in this different context? What do you think about his changed
circumstances and his relationship with Walter Kinderman (a pivotal
character in Glass’s The Whole World Over)?
20. In the end, do you think Kit found what he was looking for?
21. When Daphne finally revisits the music camp, along with her second
husband and Kit, do you think she is changed by facing down this fateful
place in her past?
22. Similarly, do you think Fenno is changed by giving up the artifacts
of Malachy that he has kept to himself, especially the box of letters
and photos? How do you think Kit will respond to that gift?
23. Julia Glass fills her novels with vivid "cameo" characters, such as
Loraina and Rayburn in Jasper’s part of the book, or Matthew in
Lucinda’s. Do you have a favorite among these characters—or wish that
some of them had been given larger roles?
24. What character in this story do you most identify with, and why?
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