Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark

1. Evaluate the themes of gender, feminism, and domesticity in Fellowship Point. How do characters, like Agnes, subvert expectations of womanhood? How does Polly, and how does Maud?
2. Early in the novel, Agnes describes the project of fiction as seeking "to reveal what a particular person [is] bound to do under explicit circumstances" (6). Do you agree with her? If not, how does your idea of fiction's project differ?
3. Do you think Agnes's idea evolves or changes over the course of the book? Alternatively, what would you imagine to be Polly's idea of fiction? Maud's?
4. The act of writing appears throughout the novel, often in different iterations. As readers, we encounter book synopses, letters, academic papers, and more. Discuss the significance of this, taking into consideration the secrets characters are willing to reveal on the page, but not to each other.
5. Class is another theme in Fellowship Point. Track where it shows up, and how, and explore its relationship to gender. For example, is it significant that many of the landowners in this novel are women?
6. Art, literature, and the creation of both appear to be recurring motifs in the novel. Characters write, read, comment on art, struggle to produce it, etc. What do you think the author is saying about artistry in this novel—especially as it pertains to work and womanhood?
7. Discuss the two epigraphs that open the book. How do they inform your interpretation of the novel's different themes?
8. How would you characterize Agnes's friendship with Polly? How do you think that friendship evolves throughout the novel—especially with the introduction of Maud—and what do you think the book is saying about how well people know each other?
9. Fellowship Point opens with a map of Cape Deel—one that foregrounds many of the novel's important settings. As a reader, did you notice any location that isn't represented on this map? Conversely, are there locations that are represented on the map, but which then play smaller roles within the narrative?
10. Discuss the shifting viewpoints in Fellowship Point. How does the arrangement of them, as well as the fact that we travel across time (from 2000 to the 1870s) and space (from Philadelphia to Manhattan), affect our experience of the story?
11. Evaluate the themes of conservation and environmentalism in the story. How does it intersect with the novel's other themes, like that of gender? Class? How might you characterize the people seeking to preserve Fellowship Point, and the ones seeking to redevelop it?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Marysue Rucci Books. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.