Swimming Lessons (Fuller) - Discussion Questions

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

1. Do you think Gil ever found the letters Ingrid wrote to him? Any of them? Some of them? All of them? If so, when? (There is no agreement on this point among readers.)

2. Talk about what the letters reveal about Ingrid's marriage to Gil and the kind of man he is (or was)?

3. What about Ingrid—what do we learn about her? What were her motives for writing the letters? Are they to be believed—is she trustworthy? Why did Ingrid write the letters to Gil rather than to her daughters?

4. Consider the symbolic significance of Ingrid's placing letters in between the pages of books (stories within stories). What might that suggest about the thematic concerns of Fuller's novel…or perhaps the truthfulness of the letters themselves…or the truthfulness of any retelling of anyone's past?

5. Talk about the daughters. How are Nan and Flora alike, and how are they different from one another? Nan, for instance, can not imagine her mother alive, while Flora continues to believe, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, that Ingrid is still alive. What do those divergent beliefs say about the sisters?

6. When Ingrid finds another woman breastfeeding Nan, what does it mean that Ingrid would "eventually understand"? Who was the woman? Was she Gabriel's mother, perhaps? Or someone else? What is the significance, if any, of that scene?

7. Speaking of Gabriel's mother: what do you make of her and her decision not to marry Gil, as her son insists?

8. As you read Swimming Lessons, did you think of Where'd You Go Bernadette? If you've read Maria Semple's book, how do the two novels compare?

9. What is the significance of the book's title "Swimming Lessons"?

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

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