Book Club Discussion Questions
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
Introduction
From the Author
The stories and even written texts of the Middle Ages were meant to be group
affairs
- someone would read or recite, and others would
listen; then all were free to discuss. So I am particularly glad that your group
has chosen to read
Mirabilis. I hope you like it....
Villeneuve, France, Anno Domini 1372. The village is under siege and
people are starving when Bonne Mirabilis, wet nurse to the wealthiest and most
enigmatic woman in town, realizes that she alone has the bounty with which to
feed the hungry.
And not by convincing her patroness to open her warehouses.
It's a defiant act of generosity
—when she was twelve years
old, her sainted mother, the two priests suspected of being her father, and all
the village women who believed Bonne's conception had been immaculate were
locked into the church and set afire.
With a masterly sense of history and the visceral spirit of
The Decameron,
newcomer Susann Cokal combines the outrageous and the wondrous into the story of
Bonne, a woman born "God's bastard," on her way to sainthood with the
troop of ascetics, mystics, lovers, and jesters who keep her milk flowing.
Mirabilis is a remarkable and confident debut
- an
endlessly surprising and darkly comic tale about appetite and miracle, all four
humors in abundance, and human ecstasy of every sort
- a
novel that carries the reader into that sweet, rare air between the Ridiculous
and the Sublime.
Discussion Questions
- Although this book is set in medieval France, many of its themes and
questions are modern. For instance, the book addresses the roles of women in
larger society. Is the author offering a critique of current culture?
- How do faith and belief function in this novel, both religious faith and
faith in oneself?
- This is a book about identity. Is the focus on identity one reason the
novel feels modern? How does Bonne redefine herself? What other characters
re-create themselves? Is identity, the quest for self, the central theme of
this novel?
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- How does the author develop themes of identity and belonging throughout the narrative?
- What role does the setting play in shaping the characters' decisions and relationships?
- Discuss how the ending reframes the events of the story. Were you surprised?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Blue Hen Publishing.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
