Book clubs

Read it with other people, carefully.

Memoir clubs fail when they become a trial or unpaid group therapy. This one can hold a serious conversation without either.

1. 1. What did you think 'home' meant at the start of the book, and what does it mean by the end?
2. 2. Where does the narrator refuse to let you like him? Why might that be a form of respect?
3. 3. How does time work differently in addiction, in prison, and in reentry? Which clock felt most true to you?
4. 4. Which relationship in the book is doing the most unpaid labor? What would fair labor look like?
5. 5. Is redemption a useful word here, or does it smuggle in a Christian plot the life does not actually follow?
6. 6. What is the difference between an excuse and a cause? Where does the book draw that line, and do you agree?
7. 7. How does shame operate as a social tool in the story — not just a feeling?
8. 8. If a member of the club has lived close to this material, they are not required to testify. How will you protect that?
9. 9. What would a just system have done differently at the first point of contact — clinic, court, family, street?
10. 10. Which scene would you cut if you were a cowardly editor, and why is that probably the scene that must stay?
11. 11. After the last page, what is one concrete act (a call, a donation, a vote, a ride) the book leaves you with?
12. 12. Who in your life should read this next, and what are you afraid they will say when they finish?