Themes and Issues

Is your book club currently or planning to read Consolation? Here are some discussion questions you can use to help explore the book's themes and issues.

• 1. In an interview with Toronto Life, Michael Redhill said that he wrote Consolation out of love and anger. How do you see these two motivations at play in the novel?
• 2. Marianne says to John: "You make no choices. You allow yourself to be moved by other things . . . You're like powder that has to have some ingredient added to make it active." Do you agree with her judgment or do you think she's too hard on John? How does John grow as a character over the course of the novel?
• 3. John says to Marianne, with respect to her husband, "You loved him, but you didn't accept him." Would you call this a fair comment?
• 4. Why do you think the author chose to leave the end of the novel open? How would the stories continue in your view? Does Jem return to Toronto to be with Claudia? Can John and Bridget ever pick up where they left off?
• 5. Do you think that the character Howard Rosen is correct in thinking that Sam was based on him?
• 6. "Time was linear: it went forward and back. But up and down was organic, it was growth and decay…" Discuss the theme of time in relation to photography, urban development and the characters' subjective experiences.
• 7. What resonances, if any, did you notice between the historical and contemporary narratives?
• 8. Both David Hollis and Jem Hallam comment on the isolation experienced by Torontonians. For David, it's a symptom of modernity. For Jem, it's the result of a harsh climate. Do you agree with either view?
• 9. Both David Hollis and Sam Ennis, dying men, describe themselves as lucky. Why do you think they feel this way?
• 10. David asks John, "Do you think you're awake?" What does he mean by that? How would you answer that same question?
• 11. Discuss the role of family in Consolation, especially with respect to John and Jem.
• 12. Do you think the struggles of Victorian- and Miller-era Toronto are all that different? Why or why not?
• 13. How does the Toronto depicted in Consolation compare with the view you have of the city either first-hand, through other books you've read or movies you've seen? Did the novel change the way you look at your own community–its past, present and future?
• 14. Loss permeates the novel–loss of life, love and the remnants of the past. How do the main characters cope with loss? How are they consoled?
• 15. Were you surprised to find out who narrates Jem Hallam's story? How did the discovery affect your reading of the novel as a whole?
• 16. Jem refused to mail his letters to his family because they were "full of lies too egregious for sending." Howard Rosen described John's manuscript as "trying to fix a lie with another lie." Discuss the role of deceit in the novel.
• 17. Both Jem and David are faced with tremendously difficult decisions: Jem, to let Claudia stay with him or fend for herself; John, whether or not to drive David to the ferry docks–and his death. Do you think each character makes the right choice?