READERS GUIDE

Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. "I’m not a hairdresser, John Reed. I’m a healer," Rita says in the first chapter. Is she a healer? Whom does she heal, and how?

2. Rita also says, "People don’t turn into anybody but themselves, I’ve found." What does she mean, and is she right?

3. Does the book’s epigraph, "We don’t see things the way they are, we see them as we are," apply only to Rita, or to other characters as well? Do you think this epigraph applies to people in general?

4. Are the Balzanos really "doing the best they can," as John says? Is their hostility justified?

5. What did Rita see in Layton? Is John that much better a match for her?

6. The novel tackles the difficult choice between obligation and desire. How do the various characters–Rita, John, Beth– struggle with these opposing elements?

7. Rita describes her hometown as "being transmogrified from an expiring mill town into the outlet-store shopping capital of eastern Massachusetts." What is the significance of Rita’s quest to save "old Alton"? Why has the author set her story against the backdrop of this vanishing town?

8. In what ways does Mrs. Rokowski mitigate Rita’s ongoing yearning for her grandmother?

9. Rita describes one of the cult members as looking "swamp-fed, a tad unformed, the type of person who might like to study slime." Where else does her penchant for speaking in images reveal her feelings?

10. Why is Rita so drawn to Beth? How are they alike despite their outward differences?

11. When Rita hears a "peaceful tolling" in the background at the House of Peace, she says she can "almost understand why [her] sister went there." Is Darla’s spiritual search completely misguided?

12. What does Rita’s willingness to take care of Darla reveal about their relationship?

13. Rita tells us her "only story." Do the other characters also have an "only story"? The Balzanos? Beth? John? Darla?

14. Do you agree with Rita’s decision to sacrifice her own happi-ness for Aileen’s?

15. Does Tonya Kurgan evoke your sympathy at the end of the book?

16. "I never intended to become this kind of person," Beth tells Rita after she reveals her secret. Would Beth be different if her life had not been touched by such loss? What kind of person has Rita become as a result of her own losses? Would she be different if she and Layton had lived happily ever after?