The Sheep Queen
by Thomas Savage
List Price: $13.95
Pages: 278
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0316610909
Publisher: Back Bay Books
A western family saga at once intimate and epic, this rich, compelling, emotionally charged novel tells the story of the Sweringen family of Idaho: Emma, the matriarch, known as the Sheep Queen ("surely one of the most fascinating characters in current fiction" Publishers Weekly); the daughter who disappoints her; the grandson who adores her; and the granddaughter, given up for adoption, who spends nearly half her life finding her way back to her family.
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1. At the turn of the last century, men were usually the dominant figures in their households. How and why did the Sheep Queen get to be so powerful? What privileges did this power allow her? Give examples of when this power was not enough to get what she needed.
2. Discuss how gender roles are played against stereotype in The Sheep Queen - for example, in the way that the Sheep Queen was more her father's son than daughter.
3. Discuss the theme of loss throughout the story - the Sheep Queen lost her son, Amy and her biological mother lost each other, Tom lost a childhood with Amy. . .
4. The related families in The Sheep Queen are so close-knit. Discuss how this affected the relationships between the family members and the choices they made for their individual futures. Think about the relationships within your own family in the same way.
5. Why did Beth give up her daughter for adoption? Do you think those who have been given up for adoption should seek out their biological families? How do you think that search affects these families?
6. Discuss the characters' Western sensibilities, the ties to the land, and the isolation of the West.
7. Why did Tom Burton, the narrator, escape from his family in the West to establish a life for himself on the East coast? How was life different for him in the East.
8. Discuss identity and roots and the impact Amy's discovery had on her and how that acknowledgment changed her. How does reading The Sheep Queen make you feel about your family heritage and background?
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"The Sheep Queen is marvelous.... Her reign has a mythic grandeur. "
—Katha Pollitt, New York Times Book Review
"The work of a masterful novelist writing at the peak of his form.... The Sheep Queen touches the reader directly and powerfully; it sticks to the bones.... In the best sense of the term the novel is old-fashioned, concerned as it is with such timeless matters as the continuity of family, the bonds of love, the yearning for roots and identity.... Any reader will come away richly and happily rewarded.... The Sheep Queen is the best of Savage's ten novels, the capstone of a distinguished and, I think, important career. "
—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
"A fine novel.... A sense of family as anchor and root and self-definition [gives] the book its considerable strength.... Mr. Savage is a writer of the first order, and he possesses in abundance the novelist's highest art-the ability to illuminate and move. "
—The New Yorker
"A powerful storyteller.... Savage writes about lives moving inexorably toward a decisive moment.... His books deserve to be much better known than they are. "
—Roger Sale, New York Review of Books
