READERS GUIDE
Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. INTRODUCTION
When Austin Gittleman first met Naomi Bloom, they were grammar school classmates and she pasted pictures of him in her Barbie Dreamhouse. Those days are long gone.
Austin is a Midwestern doctor who always tries to do the right thing—even if it often turns out wrong. Naomi is a Miami pastry chef with a taste for adventure. They seem to have nothing in common. But that doesn’t stop Austin from falling head over heels when they reconnect at a mutual friend’s seaside wedding.
Only, falling hard doesn’t guarantee happily ever after, or even a second date. Tropical storms and mechanical malfunctions contribute to a series of miscommunications and missed connections that lead Austin and Naomi away from each other and back again.
In The Scenic Route, life is what happens on the way to where you’re going. It’s unpredictable and inconvenient, but it can be pretty wonderful when you bring the right person along for the ride.
ABOUT DEVAN SIPHER
Devan Sipher is a writer of the New York Times’s “Vows” wedding column and the author of The Wedding Beat. He lives in Manhattan.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- Early in the book, Naomi tells Austin that there’s no such thing as a wrong turn. Do you agree or disagree and why?
- How would you describe a “manstrosity”? Do you know any?
- Mandy theorized that the flawed choices humans make in their romantic pursuits are a genetic trait rather than a personal failure. Do you think that’s likely true or wishful thinking? Were Mandy’s flawed choices an implicit part of who she was?
- Have you ever seen the Lumière film Sortie d’Usine? One version (of three) is viewable at the Institut Lumière Web site: http://www.institut-lumiere.org. What stands out for you in the film? Do you think the film depicts something literal, metaphoric or both? Why do you think Naomi watched it over and over?
- When Naomi told Austin she loved him, what should he have done? Was he morally obligated to be faithful to Dallas? Or was he being unnecessarily self-sacrificing?
- Is Lila on to something with her plan to run away from home in her fifties? What are the advantages to waiting to sow your wild oats until your middle-age years? What are the disadvantages?
- Do you believe there are “red-light people” and “green-light people”? What do you think are the characteristics of each? Do you believe a person can change from one to the other? And what did Dallas mean when she said Austin was yellow?
- Why did Austin lash out at his mother while Mandy was in the hospital? Do you think Austin truly believes his father had a choice in his death? Why would Austin believe that?
- Is Noah right about romantic partners each playing yin to the other’s yang? Have you ever felt like you were locked in an unintended role in a relationship?
- Austin starts the book wanting to follow a safe and cautious path in life. Was his problem that he chose an impossible goal or that he didn’t do a good enough job of pursuing it? And in a world where we can’t count on hospitals—or even cities—remaining solvent, what remains a safe bet?
- Tad’s title for Mandy’s dissertation is “The Evolution of Love.” Would that have been a good title for the novel as well? Why or why not?
- If Austin had told Naomi he was falling for her when they first met, the trajectory of their lives for the remainder of the book would be significantly different. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that they ended up taking “the scenic route”?
