Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and our BookBrowse Review of Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Discuss the author's choice of the book's narrators. We alternate between Katharina Kepler's voice as transcribed by her neighbor Simon, Simon himself, and then testimony and letters from accusers or advocates of Katharina. How might using multiple narrators be more revealing than using a single narrator? What color makes it in, what nuance, or what intimacy?
2. Rumors are central to Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch. Describe some of the rumors that affect Katharina Kepler throughout the novel. Are there any that you found particularly insidious? Which ones, and why? How and why do the rumors start? Describe how they take new forms as Katharina's story progresses. Were you surprised by the life some of the rumors took on? What does the evolution of the rumors suggest about the beliefs of Katharina's peers? When and why might they choose to believe rumors rather than what is easily provable?
3. How would you describe Katharina and her alleged crimes? Did you find her trial irritating, cruel, or something else? Do you feel she made herself a target, perhaps by meddling, even if she meant well? Even Simon "acknowledges her intrusive nature," although he admits it has a "resplendent underside" (page 44).

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.