Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson

1. The Cheyenne and other tribes live within the borders of the United States. However, as Craig Johnson points out in The Cold Dish, the Cheyenne also constitute a sovereign nation, and the reservation stands politically and culturally as a world apart. Characters like Henry Standing Bear and Lonnie Little Bird must mediate between two modes of life and two identities. How does Johnson address the Indian characters' problem of dual identity?
2. Johnson's book also deals with various images of the West, and a tension exists between the West of idealized myth and the West as it is experienced by those who actually live there. What instances of the interplay between the romantic West and the literal West do you observe, and what effects do they produce?
3. The friendship between Walt Longmire, the tough, dedicated Caucasian lawman, and Henry Standing Bear, the savvy, loyal Native American, has well-known antecedents in stories about the West. Does Johnson succeed in distinguishing the relationship from its Lone Ranger and Tonto antecedents? How can Walt and Henry's friendship be seen as an ironic commentary on its traditional models?
4. Two of the young men who sexually assaulted Melissa Little Bird are dead before we have a chance to meet them, and they are permitted to speak only in short flashback scenes. The other two are also developed in relatively brief strokes. What does Johnson accomplish by declining to explore the psychology of the four boys, especially the more deeply guilty ones? How would the novel have been different if Johnson had chosen to investigate their motivations and viewpoints in greater depth?
5. At the end of Chapter Six, while watching a snowfall, Sheriff Longmire thinks of the tiny, inaudible sound made by a snowflake. He reflects that "an awful lot of the voices in [his] own life were so small and high as to be indetectable by the human ear." Why does he offer this observation, and what do you think generally about his powers to hear and sympathize with the voices around him?
6. It is easy to think of the West as a principally masculine space. Nevertheless, the women in The Cold Dish refuse to be slighted, and they are much more than romantic foils for the male protagonists. Select a female character and discuss her responses to the gender-related issues in the novel.
7. The citizens of Absaroka County seem like good people, easy to have a beer with and pleased to trade jokes over a community breakfast. Yet they are also people who try to sweep scandal under the rug and are reluctant to punish the four boys for their heinous attack on a defenseless girl. How does the white community function as a collective character in the novel, and how do central characters like Walt, Henry, Vic, and Lonnie either make peace with the community or define themselves against it?
8. In Chapter Twelve, Walt observes, "All the important promises are about leaving and not leaving." Is this statement true or is it merely Walt's perception? In either case, what does the statement tell us about the needs and values of Walt's character?
9. George Esper's repeated escapes from custody form a recurrent motif in the latter chapters of the novel. Do these escapes have significance apart from the comic frustration they cause Sheriff Longmire? Is there a symbolic dimension to George Esper, whose lack of common sense continually thrusts him outside of attempts to restrain him?
10. The title of the novel alludes to revenge. Does the revenge that is taken in the novel produce satisfaction for anyone? If the county court had given out stiffer sentences in the Little Bird case, would that outcome have been more satisfying than the acts of a vigilante killer? Does the book as a whole describe a triumph or a failure of justice?
11. The Cold Dish both begins and ends with Walt's watching the flight of Canada geese. What mood is created by this framing image? Does Walt's interest in the geese have a larger meaning?

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