READERS GUIDE

Questions for Discussion

1. What did you enjoy most about The House of Hawthorne?

2. What do you find unusual, appealing, and perplexing about Sophia and Nathaniel’s courtship?

3. Do you see their marriage as a practical partnership, as a union of soul mates, or as something else altogether?

4. Why do you think Sophia largely gives up her pursuit of art after marrying Nathaniel? Is her sacrifice still to some extent inevitable for women who have children? What might her life have been like if she hadn’t married him?

5. Talk about the Hawthornes’ many losses of family and friends to ill health and accidents. Discuss how modern medicine has tended to change our own perception of death. What blind spots have we perhaps developed as a result?

6. In what ways might the Hawthornes be considered a modern family? Do you think Sophia and Nathaniel are good parents?

7. In the years leading to the Civil War, Sophia and Nathaniel disagree with many family members over their belief that war should be avoided at all costs, and that slavery will die a natural death over several generations. How might U.S. history have been different if events had gone as the Hawthornes wished?

8. What kind of relationship do you have with the natural world, and how does it compare to Nathaniel’s and Sophia’s? What has been lost and gained in our understanding of nature in the decades since they lived?

9. Of the many artists, writers, and philosophers the Hawthornes get to know, whom do you find the most interesting and why?

10. Has reading the book made you want to read, or reread, Nathaniel’s novels? What do you think of his work?

11. What do you think is more important: the accomplishments we leave behind or a life well lived? How might the two differ? Which do you think Nathaniel and Sophia achieve?