The Maze at Windermere Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Chateau-sur-Mer and our BookBrowse Review of The Maze at Windermere.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. At one point in the novel Alice du Pont tells Sandy Alison that in France there's "... a crime called abus de faiblesse. Which is exploiting someone's frailty or weakness for your own gain. A kind of killer instinct" (page 60). Who is doing the exploiting in this novel, and who is being exploited?
2. In one of their early conversations Sandy and Aisha discuss money and motive: "When that kind of money was involved, that kind of privilege ... could anybody really be sure of their motives?" (page 90). Do you agree with the idea that one's motives can be obscure even to oneself? Beyond their stated motives, what do you think each main character—Sandy Alison, Franklin Drexel, Henry James, Major Ballard, and Prudence Selwyn—truly desires?
3. Major Ballard writes that he sometimes feels "as if I am standing outside the World and looking in, as if I am on the Edge of the world's Orchard and I can see the Fruit hanging on the trees but am denied them" (page 116). Other characters in the novel share this experience of feeling that they don't quite belong. Major Ballard's impulse is a determination to "eat of the fruit of that Orchard, violently if that was what it took" (page 117). How do other characters respond to their experience of being on the margins of their world?

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.