QUESTIONS

1. Carlson’s novel contrasts two worlds: the world nature with its abundance of wild beauty and the manmade world of technology. What are some examples?
2. On the hike, Vonnie quickly displays her bitterness about Mack’s lying (pp. 49-51). If she’s so resentful, why did she agree to go on the fishing trip with him in the first place?
3. What expectations does Mack have about the trip?
4. What does Mack mean when he says, “I’m done with desperation.”? (p. 52) Is he really done with desperation?
5. Does the way the book ends make it a retelling of the “brave hero rescuing the damsels in distress” story, or is it something else?
6. What is the significance of the title?

The following questions are from the publisher’s reading guide, which can be found online at us.penguin.com:

1. Mack was told “that there were only a few places left in the country where a person could get five miles from the road, and it remained the worst news he’d ever heard.” What does this say about Mack’s character?
2. When Mack first met Vonnie, he “didn’t like her immediately” as a matter of policy: his father had warned him about getting mixed up with the guests. What changes Mack’s mind about Vonnie? Would Mack have acted differently if his father had disapproved?
3. Mack often looks to his memories of his father, who inspired in Mack a “wondering . . . which he understood simply to be love, the aching desire to measure up.” In what ways has Mack departed from his father’s teachings? In what way has he lived up to them?
4. “‘I’m not my Dad,’” Mack tells Charley Yarnell, which “hurt to say and was a relief.” Why does it hurt Mack to say this? Why is it a relief?
5. The details of Mack’s dissolution and the collapse of his and Vonnie’s marriage are revealed intermittently, through conversation and flashback. Why does the author choose to reveal the fissures in their marriage gradually? How does this method affect your view of their marriage?
6. Vonnie tells Mack that he’s “full of ghosts,” to which Mack replies, “I’ve got a living memory, if that’s what you mean.” What or who are Mack’s ghosts? Why does Vonnie have none? Is there a difference between “living memory” and ghosts, as Vonnie seems to feel? Or are they the synonymous, as in Mack’s view?
7. The legend of Hiram Corazon (whose last name means “heart” in Spanish) begins as a cannibal yarn to scare campers and evolves in Mack’s telling into something more significant. Why does Mack expand the story to make Hiram into a sympathetic character? Does Hiram’s story mirror Mack’s in some sense?
8. Vonnie and Mack both have an attachment to the land that can be fragile. At one point, Vonnie says, “This was a good place, but we used it up.” And in the midst of violence, Mack hears his father’s voice say “Something very bad has happened, boy; how do you feel about the place now?” What are Vonnie and Mack’s feelings about the permanence and value of their land? Do their reactions to place differ?
9. The Signal turns suddenly violent as it accelerates to its end. As Mack heads into the violence he thinks, “he was doing something stupid again but he’d do it all the way.” Does Mack really have no choice? Is he returning to an older, truer way of life, or is he regressing? What do you think about his retaliation?
10. Near the end of the book, Mack “wondered what made Kent work. He’d only now understood what worked for himself.” What is it that Mack has learned “works” for him? And why has he understood it only now?