Miracle Creek Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, HBOT: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and our BookBrowse Review of Miracle Creek.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine—a pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic "dives" with the hopes of treating conditions such as autism and infertility. But when the Miracle Submarine mys-teriously explodes, killing two people, a dramatic murder trial upends the Yoos' small community.

Who or what caused the explosion? Was it the mother of one of the patients, who claimed to be sick that day but was smoking down by the creek? Or was it Young and Pak themselves, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? The ensuing trial uncovers unimaginable secrets from that night—trysts in the woods, mysterious notes, child-abuse charges—as well as tense rivalries and alliances among a group of people driven to extraordinary degrees of desperation and sacrifice.

Angie Kim's Miracle Creek is a thoroughly contemporary take on the courtroom drama, drawing on the author's own life as a Korean immigrant, former trial lawyer, and mother of a real-life "submarine" patient. Both a compelling page-turner and an excavation of identity and the desire for connection, Miracle Creek is a brilliant, empathetic debut from an exciting new voice. We hope the following questions will enhance your reading group's experience of this thrilling debut novel about how far we'll go to protect our families—and our deepest secrets.



Topics for Discussion

1. In the opening chapter of Miracle Creek, Young Yoo narrates her version of events on the evening of the HBOT explosion. Why do you suppose the author chose to use first-person narration here, when the rest of the book is written in the third-person? Did this technique influence your reading of the early sections of the book?
2. What are some of the differences between American and Korean culture that the book explores? How are these experienced by Matt and Janine? By the Yoo family? How are the Korean characters stereotyped by others? How do they defy stereotype?
3. Autism is diagnosed on a spectrum with a wide variation in symptoms, as evidenced by TJ Kozlowski and Henry Ward. In Miracle Creek, the mothers of autistic children are portrayed as having a wide range of beliefs about treatments for their children. Which of these treatments had you heard of? Do you have an autistic child or know someone who does? Do you agree with Elizabeth that those with autism face a stigma that children with other physical or mental differences don't? Did the book add to your understanding of this disorder, or did it influence your attitude toward parents with autistic children?
   

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