QUESTIONS

SPOILER ALERT: Some of the questions in the back of the book give away plot details, so I advise not reading those questions until you have finished the book. I’ve been careful to come up with questions that give very little away.

1. What elements make the story realistic? What clues does the author give that this is not a strictly realistic story?
   

2. How do the mysteries from the past affect the characters’ lives in the present?
   

3. How does the author manipulate the reader by leading you to jump to conclusions? What are some examples of this?
   

4. Many people and things are lost in the course of the story: people, a stuffed animal, cats, marriages. What other examples of loss are there? What is recovered by the end of the novel?
   

5. The characters have obsessions or avocations that sustain them. Julia has God (p. 78); Amelia has gardening (p. 78); Theo has his pain (p. 89). What do the other characters have?
   

6. Amelia is a plain woman with a prickly personality who teaches communication skills to “assorted riffraff”, Julia is a failed actress, Jackson has a low-status job and a failed marriage, and Theo is judged because of his size. The characters in Case Histories would never make it into a romance novel or a Hollywood film, and they would probably be considered “losers” in the eyes of society. Do they have qualities that make up for their “failings”? What other examples of “outcasts” and “riffraff” appear in the novel?
   

7. Chance plays a role, often a cruel role, in the characters’ lives. What examples of chance and coincidence are there?
   

8. Three very different father-daughter relationships are depicted: Victor and his daughters, Theo and Laura, Jackson and Marlee. Are there any similarities?
   

9. For a book that deals with subjects such as murder and abuse, there is a lot of humor in Case Histories. Is the humor ever inappropriate? What did you like about the humor?
   

10. “What did you do when the worst thing that could happen to you had already happened - how did you live your life then?” Jackson wonders (p. 116). What answers do the characters in the novel give us to this question?
    

11. What closure do the characters get from learning the truth about their respective cases?
    

12. What does Jackson get out of solving the cases?
    

13. “Time did not heal – it merely rubbed at the wound, slowly and relentlessly,” says Theo (p. 88) Which of the damaged characters are healed? How?