Study Guide for Book Clubs: Commonwealth: Study Guides for Book Clubs, #24

By Kathryn Cope

Whether you are a member of a reading group, or simply reading Commonwealth for pleasure, this clear and concise guide, written by a specialist in literature, will greatly enhance your reading experience. A comprehensive guide to Ann Patchett's acclaimed new novel, Commonwealth, this discussion aid includes a wealth of information and resources: useful literary context; an author biography; a plot synopsis; analyses of themes & imagery; character analysis; twenty thought-provoking discussion questions; recommended further reading and even a quick quiz. For those in book clubs, this useful companion guide takes the hard work out of preparing for meetings and guarantees productive discussion. For solo readers, it encourages a deeper examination of a rich and rewarding text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathryn Cope
• Release date: Feb 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386607632

Kathryn Cope

Kathryn Cope graduated in English Literature from Manchester University and obtained her master’s degree in contemporary fiction from the University of York. She is the author of Study Guides for Book Clubs and the HarperCollins Offical Book Club Guide series. She lives in the Staffordshire Moorlands with her husband, son and dog.

Book preview

Introduction

There are few things more rewarding than getting together with a group of like-minded people and discussing a good book. Book club meetings, at their best, are vibrant, passionate affairs. Each member will bring along a different perspective and ideally there will be heated debate.

A surprising number of book club members, however, report that their meetings have been a disappointment. Even though their group loved the particular book they were discussing, they could think of astonishingly little to say about it. Failing to find interesting discussion angles for a book is the single most common reason for book group discussions to fall flat. Most book groups only meet once a month and a lacklustre meeting is frustrating for everyone.

Study Guides for Book Clubs were born out of a passion for reading groups. Packed with information, they take the hard work out of preparing for a meeting and ensure that your book group discussions never run dry. How you choose to use the guides is entirely up to you. The author biography and style sections provide useful background information which may be interesting to share with your group at the beginning of your meeting. The all-important list of discussion questions, which will probably form the core of your meeting, can be found towards the end of this guide. To support your responses to the discussion questions, you may find it helpful to refer to the ‘Themes’ and ‘Character’ sections.

A detailed plot synopsis is provided as an aide-memoire if you need to recap on the finer points of the plot. There is also a quick quiz - a fun way to test your knowledge and bring your discussion to a close. Finally, if this was a book that you particularly enjoyed, the guide concludes with a list of books similar in style or subject matter.

Be warned, this guide contains spoilers. Please do not be tempted to read it before you have read the original novel as plot surprises will be well and truly ruined.

Kathryn Cope, 2017

Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett was born in Los Angeles, California. She was the youngest of two daughters born to Frank Patchett (a Los Angeles police captain who participated in the arrest of Charles Manson) and Jeanne Ray (a nurse who became a novelist in later life). When Ann was young her parents divorced and her mother remarried. In the process Ann acquired not only a stepfather but also four step-siblings. The family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, when Ann was six years old. She and her sister attended a private Catholic school for girls.

After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Patchett worked at Seventeen magazine for nine years. Her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, was published in 1992, followed by Taft in 1994 and The Magician’s Assistant in 1997. It was the publication of Bel Canto in 2001, however, that brought Patchett literary fame. Loosely based on a 1990s-hostage crisis that took place at the Japanese Embassy in Peru, Bel Canto won both the Orange and the PEN/Faulkner Prizes. The novel was followed by Run in 2007 and State of Wonder in 2011. While her novels explore an impressive range of subject matter, Patchett points out that they are all essentially about a group of people who are pulled out of one family or situation and dropped into another one in which they are not familiar. This is certainly true of her 2016 novel, Commonwealth: Patchett’s most autobiographical work of fiction to date.

As well as novels, Patchett has written three non-fiction books: Truth and Beauty, What Now? And This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. For readers keen to know more about Patchett’s life This is the Story of a Happy Marriage provides an insight into her upbringing with obvious parallels to the fictional families in Commonwealth. Truth and Beauty is a memoir recounting Patchett’s friendship with Lucy Grealy, a writer who survived jaw cancer as a child but went on to die from drug addiction as an adult. This memoir proved controversial when Lucy Grealy’s sister accused Patchett of unnecessarily raking over painful memories.

A passionate advocate of independent booksellers, Patchett co-founded Parnassus Books: an independent bookstore in Nashville. In 2012 Time magazine named her as one of the 100 Most influential People in the World. The author lives in Nashville with her husband Karl VanDevender and their dog, Sparky.

Plot Synopsis

Chapter One

In Los Angeles 1965, Beverly and Fix Keating hold a christening party for their youngest daughter. Fix, a police officer, opens the door to Bert Cousins who has brought a bottle of gin. A lawyer from the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, Bert has not been invited to the party but heard his colleague, Dick Spencer, mention the christening at work. He sees the party as an opportunity to get away from Teresa, his heavily pregnant wife, and his three young children (Cal, Holly and Jeanette).

At Bert’s arrival, the atmosphere of the party perceptibly changes. Delighted at the unexpected appearance of gin, Beverly sends Fix and his brother to the store to buy ice and tonic to accompany it. When Fix returns, he finds most of the guests crammed into the kitchen, where a steady stream of gin and oranges are being made and served. At the centre of the activity is Beverly, slicing the oranges, while Bert Cousins obligingly squeezes them. When Bert’s gin runs out, Beverly empties the contents of her liquor cabinet,