Black Water Rising (Locke) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help you get a discussion started for Black Water Rising:

1. Talk about Jay's past, as a student activist, and the way in which his past affects his present. How is Jay's idealism in conflict with his desire to keep his head down—and how does that unease manifest itself throughout the story?

2. How does Jay's "racialized disposition, his sensitive, almost exquisite sense of the world as black and white" affect his judgment? In the world of this book, is Jay's divided view of the world correct? How about in real life?

3. When Jay rescues the white woman at the beginning of the story, why does he leave her on the steps of the police station? What assumptions does he make about the entire incident—who she is, why she refuses to talk, and the consequences of his own invovlement?

4. What moves Jay to become involved in the woman's case?

5. In what way has money become "the new Jim Crow"?

6. What are Jay's feelings toward Cynthia Maddox...and what are your feelings toward her character? What about her comment that "No one understands discrimination more than I do"?

7. Jay's father-in-law, a minister, wants Jay to help the dockworkers by instigating a lawsuit in support of their cause. Why is Jay reluctant to get involved? What does he mean when he thinks he's "been there before"?

8. What are the three distinct storylines of this mystery, and how do they become enmeshed with one another to create the different layers of complications?

9. Does the book deliver in terms of being both a mystery and suspense story? Did you find yourself quickly turning the page to find out what happened next? Were you surprised by the twists and turns of the storyline? Is the ending satisfying?

10. Some reviewers feel the story contains too many distracting subplots or flashbacks, which drag down the pace of reading. Do you agree? Others feel the novel reads in parts like a screenplay. What might they mean and do you agree...or not?

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

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