Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for The Hundred Waters by Lauren Acampora

1. The Hundred Waters takes place in the idyllic but sleepy fictional town of Nearwater, Connecticut. Louisa is occasionally frustrated by the "fairy-tale quicksand" of life there; Richard seems to experience Nearwater as an oasis (p. 68). Talk about the town and the prominent role it plays in this narrative. What does Nearwater mean to Louisa? To Richard?
2. Both thirty-nine-year-old Louisa and twelve-year-old Sylvie are drawn to eighteen-year-old Gabriel. Richard and Louisa are a married couple nearly two decades apart in age. How do you think age gaps impact the way the characters relate to each other? Do their attitudes reflect universal generational patterns or divides? Do they subvert them? In what ways?
3. What is the role of Sylvie's friend Katherine's untimely death in this story? How does it influence the way Sylvie views the world? The way Louisa and Richard view parenting?
4. Throughout the novel, Richard and Louisa disagree about parenting Sylvie: Richard argues that their job is to "protect her from pain and fear"; Louisa counters that it is to "equip her for the inescapable" (p. 24). Which perspective are your own ideas most aligned with? In the end, is Sylvie protected? Is she equipped to handle adversity? Is it possible to fully protect a child from pain, or to fully prepare a child to handle difficulty?
5. By turns, Louisa is threatened by and powerfully attracted to Gabriel. Their connection comes to a head when they have sex in the woods after Gabriel shows Louisa his latest "project." What do you think Gabriel represents for Louisa? What draws her to him? How did you feel about the sex scene? Did it change the way you felt about Louisa?
6. Gabriel and Sylvie form an unusual and secret friendship. Why is Gabriel motivated to befriend Sylvie? Does he enjoy her company? Is proximity to Sylvie another way to gain access to Louisa?
7. While comparing her former home in New York City to Nearwater's "bland, coddling comfort," Louisa reflects that "Grown people need friction to live" (p. 69). Do you think this is true? In your own life, do you seek friction, comfort, or both?
8. Talk about Louisa's reaction to Gabriel's final "gift" in the audio building. When Richard is upset by hearing the recording of his wife and Gabriel having sex, Louisa tells him "It's art" (p. 217). Did her response surprise you?
9. As Louisa makes tentative strides towards resuming her curtailed photography career, she is "bewildered" by Gabriel's confidence in his own artistic abilities: "the kind of male determination based on nothing but the itch of potential inside" (pp. 58-59). By contrast, "The world had always told Louisa ... She was the art, not the artist" (p. 55). Talk about the role of gender in Louisa's versus Gabriel's relationship to their art. How does Louisa's gender influence her relationship to her photography career? What are the differences in what the world "tells" men and women about their personal and professional ambitions?
10. Louisa feels that technology allows for a ubiquity of images that cheapens their wonder: "Now that everyone is a photographer, now that the world is awash in images, there's little magic left in them. What pictures remain to be taken?" (p. 53). What do you think of this statement? How do the cellphone camera and the accessibility of images play a role in your own life? In this story?
11. Louisa was once enmeshed in the Manhattan art world. When talking to Angelica, a successful artist still living in Manhattan, Louisa thinks wistfully that "This is what [her own] life could have been, living for herself alone" (p. 134). What does it mean to live for oneself alone? Does "making it" as an artist require doing so?
12. Gabriel tells Sylvie it is "good to remember that you're dying ... Now, and now, and now" (p. 82). By contrast, Louisa enjoys photography partially because it allows her to capture "a slice of immortality" (p. 96). How do the characters in this book relate differently to death and mortality? What do you make of Gabriel and Louisa's different perspectives? How do these attitudes manifest in each of their art?
13. How do you think seeing Xavier at the gallery opening, then learning of his death, affects Louisa's choices in the novel? Do you think the story would have gone the same way had Louisa not run into him, or had she not found out about his death?
14. Gabriel's activism centers on the global climate crisis. He tells Sylvie that it's easier for people to focus on small actions they can control—such as switching to reusable grocery bags—than to truly wake up to the gravity of the situation. What do you think about this? Is it easier to live in a "dream life" than to confront the magnitude of the problem? How do you relate to the changing climate in your own life? To activism?
15. Gabriel is inspired by the artist and sailor who renamed himself Hundertwasser, meaning "hundred waters" (p. 114). Why do you think Acampora decided to title the book after him?
16. Gabriel's provocative "projects" escalate in scope—beginning with covering the golf course with the Noah's Ark figures and concluding with arson and freeing the menagerie at the home of the Foxes. Where is the line between art, activism, and vandalism? Do you think his actions are justified?
17. What do you think of the book's ending? What do you imagine will happen next for Sylvie, Louisa, Gabriel, and Richard?

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