1. If you were in D’s position and you opened that safe, what do you think you would have done?
2. At what point does The Cook Up read more like a novel than a memoir? How is D’s story a Hero’s Journey?
3. How would you characterize D’s choice to start cooking crack cocaine? Was it an act of veneration to try to be just like his big brother? Or by defying Bip’s wish for his brother to attend college, was becoming a drug dealer an assertion of D’s independence? Bip always hoped for more for D: Who in your life does that for you?
4. D begins The Cook Up with a college acceptance and ends it with a college attendance, but he lived a thousand lives in between. Consider the ways D’s values changed during his years away from higher education in terms of maturity, responsibility, and materialism. What if he had remained at Loyola University and never started dealing? What did he gain from dropping out of college?
5. Discuss the ways in which the realities of running a drug ring differed from your expectations of it. Were there any stereotypes you may have had that The Cook Up forced you to confront? If so, what were they?
6. D refers to himself as a “serial escapist.” Does this strike you as an apt characterization? What exactly is D escaping from, and does he ever succeed in outrunning it?
7. D refers to women like Miss Angie as “the most powerful people in the Black community,” in that she provides consistent support in a neighborhood of volatile change. In what ways does this definition upset the conventional understanding of power? By these standards, who is the most powerful person in your own life?
8. Why do you think D included Hope in his memoir? As a symbol? A warning? A turning point? Who was she to him? In their final interaction at the 7-Eleven, D and Hope fail to recognize each other. Put yourself in D’s shoes: Would you have acted differently?
9. D and his friends worshiped Jay Z; they even called their product “Rockafella” to pay homage to the rapper’s record label. What do you think it is about the musician that made him so iconic to this group? Who was that figure in your own life, growing up?
10. D says that as a child, he was given books such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that he and his friends couldn’t relate to. It wasn’t until he discovered Fire in a Canebrake in college that D finally enjoyed reading. What books do you think should be taught in schools? Is there such a thing as a universally relatable book?
11. Discuss D’s assertion that reading is the avenue to freedom, to understanding others and ourselves. When does reading make us feel closer to worlds other than our own, and when does it make us more aware of our individuality? Is one result more freeing than another? What freedoms has The Cook Up provided you?