We Are Not Ourselves(205)
SIMON & SCHUSTER
READING GROUP GUIDE
We Are Not Ourselves
Matthew Thomas
About This Guide
This reading group guide for We Are Not Ourselves includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Matthew Thomas. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
Epic in scope, heroic in character, and masterful in prose, We Are Not Ourselves is a multigenerational portrait of the Irish American Leary family.
Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed.
When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she’s found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn’t aspire to the same, ever bigger stakes in the American Dream. Although she encourages him to want more, as the years pass it becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future.
Through the Leary family, novelist Matthew Thomas charts the story of the American Century. At once expansive and exquisitely detailed, We Are Not Ourselves is a riveting and affecting work of art––one that reminds us that life is more than a tally of victories and defeats, that we live to love and be loved, and that we should tell one another so before the moment slips away.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. Thomas begins his novel with two epigraphs, one from Stanley Kunitz and one from King Lear. Did the epigraphs inform your reading of the novel? How did they relate to each of the members of the Leary family? Why do you think Thomas chose to use the phrase We Are Not Ourselves, taken from the King Lear epigraph, as the title of his novel?
2. When Eileen is growing up, she’s aware that “men were always quieting down around her father”, whom “everybody called…Big Mike”. Describe Big Mike. Why does he command so much respect from the outside world? Does this influence Eileen’s behavior? In what ways? How does Big Mike’s legend compare with the reality of what he is like when he is at home with Eileen and her mother?
3. Even after Eileen buys the apartment building from the Orlando family, she’s obsessed with the idea of owning her own house. Why is this so important for Eileen?
4. When Eileen enters nursing school “she knew that even if nursing wasn’t the field she’d have chosen, she’d been training for it without meaning to from an early age”. Describe Eileen’s childhood. How have Eileen’s experiences with her mother helped prepare her for the job? Occasionally Eileen feels the instructors are “treating her with something like professional courtesy”, and it makes her think of the way men in the neighborhood treat her father. Why? And why does this make her uneasy?
5. When Ed turns down an offer to be the chairman of his department, he tells Eileen, “It’s all about having the right ambition”. What does Ed think the “right” ambitions are? Why is Eileen so upset that he has turned down the job? How does his ambition conflict with Eileen’s?
6. After Ed has lost his temper and “flipped out” on Connell, Eileen tells him that “it had better not [happen again]. I don’t give a damn what your father did to you. That boy’s not him”. Why do you think Ed is so reticent to talk about his relationship with his own father? Does Ed’s relationship with his father inform his parenting style with Connell? If so, in what ways?
7. On moving day, when Eileen arrives at her new house, “Her first thought as she took in the house through the window as that it didn’t look the way she’d remembered it”. Contrast Eileen’s memory of her new house with the reality of what it looks like. What accounts for the change in the way that Eileen views the house? Why is she so baffled when her movers ask her where they should place her belongings within it?
8. Connell attends one of Ed’s classes in order to complete a school assignment. Describe Connell’s experience in the classroom. Although Connell is unnerved by his time in Ed’s classroom, he keeps his word to Ed and decides not to tell his mother how strange it had been. Why do you think Connell chooses to keep this information to himself? Do you agree with his decision to do so? When Ed apologizes to Connell, Connell tells him, “It’s all right . . . I already know what kind of teacher you are. You teach me every day”. How does Ed teach his son?
9. Who is Bethany? Do you think her friendship with Eileen is healthy? Why or why not? Why does Eileen agree to accompany Bethany to the faith healer? Compare and contrast Eileen’s experiences with Vywamus with her experience going to a therapist. Why does Eileen think that going to the faith healer is “better than therapy”. Do you think going to the faith healer has helped Eileen? How?