Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty (Ausubel)

Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if they're made available. In the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to kick off a discussion for Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty...then take off on your own:

1. Describe the main characters, Fern and Edgar Keating. Is Edgar a hypocrite, for example, or does he simply live by his own idiosyncratic code of behavior? How do you feel about both of the Keatings, and do those feelings change by the end? Do either of them learn, change, or grow during the course of the novel?

2. Talk about Cricket, James, and Will and how they fend for themselves after their parents' abandonment. Do you find irony in their ability to cope without so-called "adult" supervision...and without dependence on family money? (Who, by the way, are more responsible: parents or children?)

3. Sons and Daughters portrays different reactions to wealth—for instance, taking pleasure in the things money makes possible or viewing wealth as a burden. How do the various characters—Edgar and Fern and the families they came from—approach wealth?

4. Discuss your own attitudes toward money? Given the situation the Keatings find themselves in, how might you react? Is the adage true that money doesn't lead to happiness? Why or why not? Is there a qualifier to that saying?

5. Ramona Ausubel inserts fabulist, folktale-like elements in her otherwise realistic novel. Do these magical additions add to or detract from the story in your opinion?

6. How is the cultural ethos of the 1960s and '70s portrayed in this novel? Talk about how the era's values (or lack of) shape the characters' beliefs and actions. Why might the author have chosen this era as the setting for her story?

7. Will the characters ever achieve happiness? Does the book hint one way or another? What do you think lies in store for the Keating family members?

8. How are animals used to telegraph foreboding in the plot?

9. Given today's political discussions surrounding the 1%, income disparity, a shrinking middle-class, and minimum wage, what were your attitudes toward the privileged when you began reading Sons and Daughters, and has the book altered—or confirmed—your attitudes?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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