Wickett's Remedy Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Myla Goldberg and our BookBrowse Review of Wickett's Remedy.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

About this Book

Set in Boston in the early years of the twentieth century, Wickett's Remedy follows the shifting fortunes of Lydia Kilkenny, who dreams of rising above the limitations of Southie, the hardscrabble Irish working- class neighborhood where she was born.

When Lydia takes a job at Gilchrist's department store on Washington Street, she enters a glittering world that is just across the bridge from Southie, but worlds away, culturally. Here she meets the shy and refined Henry Wickett, a medical student from a Boston Brahmin family who falls in love with Lydia's vibrant enthusiasm. They marry, and Lydia's dreams of a more elegant and cultured life seem to be coming true. But then Henry announces that he's quit medical school to create a mail-order patent medicine called Wickett's Remedy, a kind of placebo accompanied by a consoling letter from Henry for all those whose illness is, at bottom, loneliness. Before the business can take off, however, the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918 breaks out and claims Henry as one of its first victims, sending Lydia back home to Southie in a disorienting grief. The calamity of the epidemic is compounded by America's entrance into World War I. Lydia's beloved brother Michael joins the fight, leaving her doubly bereft. The flu begins to ravage Boston, turning the city into a nightmare of fever, panic, and agonizing death. Impulsively, Lydia volunteers at a hospital that is unable to keep up with the rising tide of the sick and dying. While caring for others, she finds a solace for her grief and a higher purpose for her life. The next day, she answers an ad for a heroic and highly dangerous experimental study to discover how the flu is transmitted—and how to stop it.

Vividly evoking this tumultuous historical period—through contemporary newspaper accounts, a chorus of otherworldly commentators, and Goldberg's own masterful narrative skills—Wickett's Remedy offers an extended meditation on sickness and health, memory and imagination, and the dream of progress.


Reader's Guide

1. How does Myla Goldberg re-create the city of Boston in the early 1900s? What descriptive details bring this era to life?
2. What role do the ghostly voices in the margins of the text play in Wickett's Remedy? What kinds of commentary do they offer on the story? Why has Goldberg added this supernatural layer to her narrative?
3. How do the deceased try to communicate with the living in this novel? How do the living perceive these attempts?

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