Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for Save Me, Stranger by Erika Krouse

1. What is the significance of the title, Save Me, Stranger? Discuss some moments when the title especially resonates, and how its meaning changes across the collection.
2. Do you have a favorite short story in the collection? Why does that one speak to you?
3. Vera in "The Pole of Cold" is the young mayor of the coldest town on earth, a place her new friend Theo calls "the edge of existence." Is Vera living or merely surviving? Do you think she should leave or remain tied to her rough and isolated life?
4. In "The Piano," Leron is trying to sell a desecrated Steinway to a lapsed musical prodigy. What has music cost them, and what has it given them? Can this piano do what his customer wants it to do—"recapture wasted time"? What would that mean?
5. A teenage runaway (nicknamed "Vanilla") drives an ice cream truck through Omaha ganglands in "North of Dodge" but discovers, "I couldn't leave Omaha if I tried." What are her mixed feelings about her new home? How does her friendship with two neglected kids force her to change, for better or worse?
6. In "Eat My Moose," Colum and Bonnie become euthanizers to cosmically ward off their own deaths. Is Bonnie correct in saying "The Devil is us," or are they angels of mercy? Do you agree with their decision to assist in the suicides of strangers?
7. In the title story, a young stranger named Vance saves the narrator, and his courage costs him his life. Do you think he made the right choice or a misguided one? What do you make of the narrator's quest to track down Vance's love interest? What does this story suggest about what we owe one another?
8. Is Elsa's father in "When in Bangkok" worth saving? How will Elsa save herself?
9. "The Standing Man" features the relationship between Satō, a Tokyo ramen shop worker, and an American expat trying to discover the secret to Satō's perfect memory. What do you think Satō means when he says, "You're after the wrong secret"?
10. In "Jude," why is Basia obsessed with her grandmother? Why does she say, "Next to my grandmother's story, how could mine mean anything?" Do you agree?
11. The narrator in "Fear Me as You Fear God" flees her husband and hides in a mountain B&B that turns out to be haunted. What is her relationship with the ghost?
12. In the same story, why does the narrator fear "nothing, nobody, no God, wondering if God now feared me"? How do you interpret the ending of the story? Do you think she made the right decision?
13. What does Arlon's wife mean when she says, "I feel like I could stand here and talk with you all night. And it would be the worst night of my life," in the story with a similar name?
14. Do you believe Arlon's encounter with the stranger in the store will help him change? Why or why not?
15. Katie is a pregnant teenager, trying to figure out her options, as she tests for her scuba certification in "The Blue Hole." When Katie says the baby's father "could just walk away, but I had to choose between eternal damnation or a sentence of eighteen years to life," what does that mean to you?
16. In the final story, "Wounds of the Heart and Great Vessels," Rachel recounts a legend where a group of men watch their empress drown rather than rescue her because "in whatever culture this was, if you save someone's life, you're responsible for that life forever." Do you agree? Do the strangers in this collection save each other out of responsibility? If not, why are they saving each other?

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