A Good Hard Look Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

Print PDF

For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Southern Gothic and our BookBrowse Review of A Good Hard Look.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Why does Napolitano open the novel with the screaming of the peacocks and with Cookie's fall? Why does she end the novel with a peacock's tail pushing through the net of its captor?


2. What kind of woman is Flannery O'Connor as she is portrayed in A Good Hard Look? How is she perceived by the people of Milledgeville? What crucial moments in the novel reveal her full depth and complexity?


3. Flannery has a "clear preference for fiction over reality, but reality wouldn't leave her alone" [p. 168]. How does reality intrude upon Flannery's desire to escape into her fiction? How does she respond to such intrusions?

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.