Night Strangers (Bohjalian)

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 get a discussion started for The Night Strangers:

1. Talk about he plane crash and the way in which it affects Chip Linton. To what degree was he to blame?

2. Why does Chris Bohjalian structure the back story of the crash as he does—unfolding it bit by bit as the story progresses? Why not recount it as one continuous chapter? What effect does spreading it out have on your reading of the novel?

3. Bohjalian uses an unusual point of view for the crash scenes—the second-person "you." Why might he have chosen this method to recount the crash story? Is the technique off-putting ... or effective?

4. Speaking of narrators, what about the family cat?

5. When first reading, at what point did you begin to suspect that all is not well with the Linton family's neighbors? What early tell-tale signs did you pick up on? What first struck you as odd?

6. Describe the characters of both Emily and Chip? Is Emily the book's hero? Is she overly removed or distracted by events to be a good parent for her daughters? If you were in Emily's position, what would you do?

7. Why do the Linton's stay in the house even after they discover it's haunted?

8. What does the haunted house, and especially the basement, represent metaphorically in the novel?

9. Where you surprised, perhaps shocked, by the epilogue?

10. Overall, what was your experience reading The Night Strangers? Does Bohjalian do a good job of ratcheting up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxiously turning pages?

11. Comparisons of Bohjalian's book have been made to Stephen King's 1977 horror/ghost story, The Shining. Have you read King's book—or seen the film with Jack Nicholson? If so, how similar are the two stories? 

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

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