Lawless

LAWLESS

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Upon the death of his wife, Granville Bondurant says, “All the goodness has gone out of the world.” What does he mean by his sentiments? How is each member of the remaining Bondurant family impacted by this death? How do they bear out Granville’s sentiments?

2. Discuss the night that Forrest Bondurant’s throat was cut at the County Line Restaurant. What do these events and the stories they spawned reveal about Forrest? Maggie? The community?

3. Discuss the symbolic significance of the opening sequence, the sow’s slaughter. How does it relate to the novel’s major themes?

4. Why do you think Matt Bondurant decided to make Sherwood Anderson, author of Winesburg, Ohio, one of the principal characters in the novel? What does Anderson allow the reader to understand about the Bondurants and the larger community in which they live? Discuss the parallels between this novel and Sherwood Anderson’s own work.

5. Discuss the female characters in the novel. What is the role women play in this world? What do the women reveal about the men of Franklin County, particularly the three brothers?

6. How do the brothers and the people of Franklin County negotiate and make sense of their lives in relation to the natural world?

7. Jack thought of Howard as “some kind of machine or animal, reacting to the world in an instinctual manner.” Why is this line of thought both comforting and frightening to Jack?

8. Explain the sequence of events that precipitates the Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935. What were the outcomes of the trial for the Bondurants?

9. What parallels does Anderson draw between the Bondurants’ struggles and his own literary battles? Do you agree with his assessment? Why or why not?

10. What is the picture of the American psyche and way of life that emerges from Bondurant’s story? What are the threats to this way of life? Where do you believe the author’s sympathies lie? Where do yours?

ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB

1. Who is Sherwood Anderson? What does Bondurant intend for us to understand about his inclusion in the novel? Consult www.bartleby.com/156/, which publishes an online version of Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, a group of short stories about small-town life. What do his stories reveal about his point of view on the world? What do their narrative structure, style, and characterization allow us to understand about Lawless?

2. Immerse yourself in the sounds of the era by purchasing and playing moonshine songs at your book club meeting. These songs tell their own tales of the moonshine lifestyle. You can listen to a sampling of the songs at these websites:

• www.scopecreep.com/yahoo/2006/09/30/moonshine-songs/(http://new.music.yahoo.com/playlist/AF025089–4181–4C28-AE93-A11B290966A0)

• www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=alb.12063326&variant=play&lsrc=RN_im

3. Want to sample moonshine? You can acquire legal moonshine called Virginia Lightning for your book club meeting by visiting and ordering from www.virginiamoonshine.com/vaLightning.html.