Book Club Discussion Questions
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
The questions and discussion topics that follow are designed to enhance your group's reading of Chris Bohjalian's
The Law of Similars. In this riveting novel, a lawyer risks everything to protect a young woman whose practice of alternative medicine leads to a legal inquiry and raises profound questions about the links between hope and hubris, love and deception.
In his widely acclaimed, controversial bestseller
Midwives, Bohjalian described the trial of a midwife who is accused of manslaughter when a home birth goes tragically wrong. In
The Law of Similars, Bohjalian weaves a compelling tale around homeopathy, an area as steeped in controversy and ambiguities as midwifery. Once again, he creates a world in which passionate beliefs and desperate needs fatefully collide with the strictures of the law and the prejudices of society.
During the two difficult years following his wife's death in a car accident, Leland Fowler devotes himself entirely to raising his small daughter Abby, and to his job as Chief Deputy State's Attorney of Vermont. The strain of making Abby's life as normal as possible, of spending exhausting days in court prosecuting petty criminals, and of negotiating the sometimes treacherous twenty-mile commute between his home and office finally takes its toll. Suffering from a chronic sore throat impervious to conventional medical treatment, Leland seeks the help of homeopath Carissa Lake. In an office decorated with evocative murals of Paris and a ceiling sparkling with painted stars, Carissa provides a cure not only for his sore throat, but for the aching loneliness that lies at the root of his symptoms. A magical Christmas Eve with Carissa reawakens Leland's abilities to love and to dream about the future. His dream is abruptly shattered the day after Christmas when one of Carissa's patients falls into an allergy-induced coma and his wife accuses Carissa of suggesting a dangerous treatment for her husband's asthma. As the State's Attorneys Office gears up to investigate Carissa, Leland finds himself in the center of the controversy, face-to-face with a moral and ethical dilemma of enormous proportions.
For discussion
- Carissa Lake is a psychologist as well as a homeopath. In what ways do these two disciplines reinforce each other in her treatment of patients? What effect do her questions about his personal life have on Leland? Does the success of Leland's cure depend on his willingness to trust Carissa?
- How does Richard Emmons's motivation for trying homeopathy differ from Leland's? Do you think that his fear of the long-term effects of conventional medicine is realistic and that Jennifer Emmons too willingly accepts the authority of the medical establishment?
- Within a week of taking Carissa's medication, Richard's skin clears up and the aches in his joints diminish. In light of this, do you think his decision to give up the inhaler and pills he took for his asthma was reasonable? Do his actions justify Jennifer's opposition to homeopathy or do they indicate a flaw within Richard himself? Should Carissa have recognized that Richard's demands for more medication were a prelude to his decision to take matters into his own hands?
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- How does the author develop themes of identity and belonging throughout the narrative?
- What role does the setting play in shaping the characters' decisions and relationships?
- Discuss how the ending reframes the events of the story. Were you surprised?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
