Those Empty Eyes

1. General Impressions (3 questions)

Objective: Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

• How did the novel’s mosaic structure impact your experience of tension in the narrative? Were there any particular moments where the back-and-forth increased your anxiety for Alex?
• The novel features a sprawling cast of characters, allowing the narrative to unwind across multiple subplots. Do you feel like the novel helped you to keep track of who was who? Looking back on how these threads come together, did you enjoy the novel’s diversions?
• How do you feel about Garrett and Jacqueline’s motivations in the novel? Do you sympathize with their vigilante work, resulting in the deaths of Alex’s family?

2. Personal Reflection and Connection (4 questions)

Objective: Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

• What should civilians do when legal authorities fail to carry out their duties? How can ordinary citizens guarantee justice when those institutions willfully obstruct it?
• Have you ever discovered an uncomfortable truth about someone you love? How did you deal with this discovery? Did you confront them about it or did you choose to distance yourself from them?
• Have you ever participated in any form of collective action to pursue justice on someone else’s behalf or speak up against a culture of violence? Share that experience and make comparisons between the issues you encountered and what occurs in the novel.
• What kind of reforms would you employ to equip the American justice system with the means to address crimes of sexual violence? Discuss what could be done to decrease the incidence of sexual violence, rather than simply seek restitution for its victims.

3. Societal and Cultural Context (2 questions)

Objective: Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

• The novel raises a critique of true crime stories, suggesting that it encourages fans of the genre to reduce the lives of those affected to the tragedies they suffer. Based on the events of the novel, do you think this critique is necessarily true? If not, how might the genre steer away from engendering this critique?
• What does the novel reveal about contemporary society’s attitudes towards sexual abuse and violence? In what ways do systems of power attempt to normalize criminal behavior or prevent it from undergoing scrutiny?

4. Literary Analysis (4 questions)

Objective: Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

• How does the novel distinguish between the narrative perspectives of Alex’s chapters and the flashback chapters that reveal Jacqueline and Garrett’s backstory? Discuss how voice, mood, and description allow you to distinguish the settings of these plot threads.
• Discuss Alex’s relationship to the grandfather clock. How does the grandfather clock represent her attitudes towards her traumatic experiences? What does her decision to bring it with her to London symbolize?
• How does Alex use the act of reinvention to empower herself throughout the novel? Cite up to three instances where Alex either overwrites her identity or has her identity overwritten by others. In the latter case, discuss how she reacts to these revisions.
• What is the novel’s position on investigative journalism? Differentiate it from true crime narratives by discussing the outcomes that each approach achieves.

5. Creative Engagement (2 questions)

Objective: Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

• Do you think Alex will try to go after Garrett next? How do you think Garett’s intentions to bring a high-profile family like the Chadwicks to justice affect Alex’s sympathy for him?
• How would the story have changed if Alex was killed instead of Raymond? Discuss the direction the plot would have taken in order to emphasize the importance of Alex’s identity as a woman in this story.

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