bird in hand a novel christina baker kline

When she was dying, Charlie’s mother offered him advice. What do you think the future holds for the four characters and especially for Charlie and Claire? Know your partner? Your best friend? Your child? Your sibling? She’d always been a kind of mystery to him.” How well can you

But Charlie had the peculiar sense with Alison that he might never know her. “You would think that two people who had built a life together over eight years, who’d seen each other at all hours of the day and night, who were raising two children together, might know each other better than anyone else in the world. How does avoidance affect the lives of the characters in Bird in Hand? How might their lives have been different if they’d been honest from the start? Much of the pain in the novel is caused by avoidance, by not wanting to know the truth. Read it before the accident and its aftermath? How would you feel if a close friend wrote a fictional account of his or her life? Would you have the same reaction as Alison? Do you think Alison’s reaction to Blue Martinis would have been different if she’d Though she had a copy of Claire’s novel, Alison “couldn’t bear” to read it. How is the affair different from, and similar to, the marriages? What does each one offer the other? Consider the two marriages, as well as the affair. What is the significance of the car accident at the beginning of the novel? Would the events that followed have unfolded anyway?Ĭompare Alison and Claire. What is your opinion of each of the four characters? Which character, if any, did you relate to the most? Do you recognize yourself- or elements of your own life-in any of the characters and their dilemmas? How do they see themselves individually and how do they see each other?

Bird in Hand is told from the perspectives of the four main characters.

Bird in hand a novel christina baker kline