The Obituary Writer
by Porter Shreve
List Price: $12.00
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0395981328
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Gordie Hatch is twenty-two, charmingly naive, and certain
that his first job as a writer for the ST LOUIS INDEPENDENT'S obituary
page will be a stepping stone to a crackerjack career in journalism. The
year is 1989, and Gordie watches helplessly while dramatic events -- the
very events that could be his lucky break -- unfold in the world around
him. But nothing can prepare him for the call he gets from Alicia Whiting,
a young widow with an accent he can't quite place. When Gordie agrees
to meet Alicia, against his better judgment, his journalistic curiosity
quickly turns into an obsessive search for the outrageous truth behind
the Whiting family. Shot through with affectionate humor and surprising
twists and turns, THE OBITUARY WRITER introduces an author of enormous
talent and heart. Porter Shreve brings a deft touch to the moments that
mark a young person's entrance into the world, and a sharp eye to the
ways in which the lead story can be wonderfully, seductivel../guides/template/top.aspbr>
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We hope the following questions will stimulate discussion for reading groups and, for every
reader, provide a deeper understanding of The Obituary Writer.
1. To what extent is Gordie's spectral father the most important person in
Gordie's life? How would you describe the role of Gordie's father in his
life, particularly in relation to Gordie's ambitions?
2. How would you describe the relationship between Gordie and his mother?
What kind of a son is he? What kind of a mother has she been? To what
extent—and with what conse-quences—has Lorraine determined her
son's character and outlook on the world?
3. After learning the truth about his father, Gordie tells his mother, "I
do understand why you thought those stories were necessary." Why may Lorraine's
untrue stories about Gordie's father have been necessary?
4. How does Shreve present Gordie's struggle between his professional ambitions
and his personal relationships and desires? Gordie tells us, "My job was
taking the measure of people's lives." To what extent does he succeed
or fail in "taking the measure" of his own and others' lives?
5. In his job, Gordie tells us, he believed he "merely had to hunker down,
work hard, and await the inevitable." What does he expect the inevitable
to be? In what ways, and to what extent, are his subsequent experiences
inevitable?
6. Gordie recalls the school-age Thea as "moving with ease from circle to
circle, hiding the wounds of abandonment." What role does a sense of,
or the reality of, abandonment play in the lives of Thea, Gordie, Alicia,
Lorraine, and others? What "wounds of abandonment" do they suffer?
7. Recalling the summer of his break-up with Thea, Gordie says, "Clearly
I had not been ready for the complexities of love." What other complexities
of life is he not ready for? With what consequences?
8. Why does Gordie lie or, at best, fantasize so consistently—to his
mother, to others, and to himself? How are Gordie's fantasies, daydreams,
and lies related to the reality of his present situation and his likely
future? If "Alicia tells lies of convenience," as Margaret Whiting contends,
what kinds of lies does Gordie tell?
9. Surprised that he is "falling" for Alicia, Gordie states, "I'd always
been a cautious person, alert to the dangers of the world." To what extent
is this true or not of Gordie's outlook and actions? What examples of
this caution do you find in the novel? Why is he not "alert to the dangers"
posed by Alicia?
10. "I knew one thing about myself from my experience with Thea," Gordie admits
early in his relationship with Alicia: "I was a deeply jealous person."
In what ways does his jealousy manifest itself throughout the novel? What
else does Gordie know about himself at this stage? What doesn't he know?
11. Why doesn't Gordie immediately recognize Alicia as the model for the triptych
painting that so fascinates him? What kinds of blindness do Gordie and
others exhibit? What "cures" Gordie's and others' blindness?
12. Both Alicia and Gordie are involved in creating lives and identities for
themselves. In what ways are their efforts similar and in what ways different?
Are they both "utterly transient," as Margaret Whiting describes Alicia?
13. "I've always wanted to be a promoter of unsung heroes," Gordie tells Margaret
Whiting, by way of "explaining" his interest in Arthur Whiting. To what
extent, beyond his own understanding, is this true of Gordie? How might
it apply to his father?
14. Simultaneous with his dismissal from the Independent, Gordie believes,
"for the first time, that perhaps I had a story. By instinct or accident
I had been following a story all along." What does he understand his story
to be? What do we see as his story? Which turns out to be the more accurate?
15. How important in the novel is the question of truth versus belief or—in
newspaper terms—the question of reporting the truth versus reporting
what is believed to be true? Showing Alicia the newsroom for the first
time, Gordie tells her, "It's what journalism is all about. No secrets."
Has this been his understanding of journalism all along? What view of
journalism's aims does the novel finally present?
16. In what ways do Gordie's behavior and attitude (his lack of objectivity,
for example) indicate that he is unqualified to be a successful journalist?
To what extent does his experience with Alicia correct his inadequacies?
At what cost?
17. Much of the novel's action involves death and the dead--from the importance
of Gordie's father, to Gordie's job as junior obituary writer, to Arthur
Whiting's death and funeral, to Dr. Osborne and his fellow crime-scene
ghouls. How would you relate this to Gordie's personality, behavior, and
attitudes?
