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Reading Group

• Reading Guide
• Characters

Reading Guide

1. Who among the players does not experience a new understanding of themselves and their motives during the tragedy of the Opus and its aftermath? Why?
2. What does the title Still Summer mean, when it comes to the way life can transform itself?
3. Who is the hero of the Opus? Is there more than one?
4. Why does ‘the young man’ have no name, at least that we are given?
5. Is Michel an amoral man?
6. What role do family secrets play in the narrative and how are they destructive?
7. Why didn't Tracy tell her daughter the truth sooner
8. Why did the women obey the pirates?
9. Is Still Summer a so-called ‘chick’ novel, because women are the main protagonists? Why or why not?
10. What do we reveal in crisis?
11. Why did the author place Still Summer in a beautiful, forgiving climate instead of a dark cave or a snowy mountain peak?
12. Is Cammie's immaturity realistic? Why hasn't she ‘grown up’ more, having just turned nineteen?
13. Does knowing the characters as people before the action begins help or hinder our knowledge of what motivates each of them? Would we have understood each of them as well if we had not seen them interact?
14. How much a part of the story depends on the physical strength of the characters? Are they different from 40-year-olds of a generation ago?
15. Discuss some of the underlying themes of the narrative: Do we really know anyone, even ourselves, as fully as we may believe? What are examples of betrayed trust in the story and does one influence the next? Is the ghost tale of the Annabeth only an entertaining interlude in the story, or does it have a deeper meaning?

Characters

Tracy Kyle, Holly Solvig and Olivia Montefalco are friends from school days. Now in their early 40s, they decide on a tropical reunion, and charter a yacht with a two-man crew to sail from from St. Thomas to Grenada.

Tracy, a high school gym teacher, has spent years fretting over her adopted daughter, Cammie, and how Cammie fits into the family alongside her much-loved biological son, Ted.

Cammie, a mouthy nineteen-year-old, is unimpressed to find herself without a boyfriend for the long summer ahead, and accepts her mother’s invitation to come along.

Holly is a nurse and mother of 12-year-old twin boys, to whom she is devoted. Like Tracy, she has her doubts about her situation with her children, but in her case, she doubts her mothering skills altogether.

Olivia is recently widowed, but not much the worse for wear. Wealthy, well-travelled and cosmopolitan, Olivia appears to be the success story of the group, having broken away from small-town American life.