Black River Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Crafting a Violin and our BookBrowse Review of Black River.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

About The Book

S. M. Hulse's novel Black River is the story of one man's trauma and its profound, years-long aftermath. The consequences of thirty-nine torturous hours of Wesley Carver's life stretch out for years and are deeply felt, not only by him, but by the people he has loved, the loved ones he has lost, and those he comes to love. The narrative alternates between the perspectives of Wesley in the days and months after the death of his beloved wife, Claire, and of Claire herself at different times of her life with Wesley. Their two stories are deeply intertwined, while depicting two distinct experiences of a shared life.

That life together is comprised of many elements, but the thread that holds them together is struggle: the struggle to love, to heal, to forgive; the struggle to find faith and to accept grief. Wesley's struggles after Claire's death, illuminated by flashbacks to their past and the terrible events that shaped their future, offer a glimpse of the extraordinary resilience of the human body and the human soul.


Discussion Questions

1. As the novel switches perspectives between Wesley and Claire, the tense also changes: Claire's accounts are in the present tense, while Wesley's are in the past tense. Why do you think the author chose this approach? How did it affect your reading of the book?
2. How does Claire's story, told from her point of view, alter or complicate the central narrative, told from Wesley's perspective?
3. Do you believe that Bobby Williams's jailhouse conversion to Christianity was authentic, or that he is, as Wesley asserts to his brother-in-law Arthur, a sociopath just trying to con the parole board with a story of rebirth and reform?

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