Invention of Exile (Manko)

Discussion Questions
1. What are your definitions of home and family? What are Austin’s? How do your definitions align or differ?

2. What was your reaction to the interrogation scenes in Connecticut (pp. 20–37)? Do you think there was anything Austin could have done to sway the inquisitor’s mind?

3. How is the lighthouse symbolic in Austin’s and Julia’s lives? What about Julia’s flooded garden?

4. Austin is very hopeful, to the point of obsession, that his inventions will aid him in reuniting with his family. How does the theme of invention work in his life and in the novel?

5. What is Anarose’s role?

6. The storyline and perspective shift and jump over time and place. How does this structure inform the story?

7. Austin muses, “Paper is stronger than one thinks. Papers, documents don’t define a man, but they lived in a mire of them. . . . His days revolved around papers. But no amount of paper means a country” (p. 116). What do you think about this passage? How do papers control how Austin conducts his life?

8. How does Austin’s story fit into the trope of the United States as a “melting pot” for immigrants? How did it influence your thoughts on the immigrant experience?

9. Austin is paranoid that an FBI agent, Jack, has him under surveillance. Do you think the agent is real, or is he a figment born of fear and distrust? What purpose does Jack serve?

10. Correspondence is a vital undercurrent in Austin’s life. How do the many letters and notes we read bring him closer to—and push him further apart from—his loved ones? How do you correspond with people close to you?

11. How does Austin’s conception and understanding of being American and returning to the United States change throughout the novel? What was your reaction to his thoughts in the final pages?

12. What does the title, The Invention of Exile, mean to you? In what ways was Austin in exile?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

top of page (summary)