Mercury (Livesey)

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Mercury...then take off on your own:

1. What is the state of Donald and Viv's marriage when we first meet them? What are the fault lines in their relationship that you begin to detect early on? What are they like as individual characters—how would you describe each of them?

2. (Follow-up to Question 1): When Donald first moved the the U.S. as a boy, he wrote for years to his best friend, only to stop when he had to admit he wasn't coming back. What does this say about him? Talk about other ways that Donald, even as an adult, confronts painful emotions.

3. (Follow up to Question 1): Talk about Viv and her attachment to Mercury. How might the death of Viv's previous horse have heightened her passion for the new horse? What affect does her obsession with riding Mercury to victory? Is she delusional?

4. At what point in the plot did you begin to sense impending danger? When do events become foreboding?

5. Donald is the primary narrator of the novel. Why might Livesey have chosen to tell the story through his eyes? And speaking of eyes, what is the irony of the fact that Donald is an optometrist?

6. Talk about Mercury as a literary symbol? Think about Mercury as a Greek deity, a chemical element, and a planet. How do all those symbolic references come into play in this novel?

7. What does this story reveal about the way in which personal character can shape destiny?

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

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