Nobody Gets Out Alive Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Small Aircraft Transport in Alaska and our BookBrowse Review of Nobody Gets Out Alive.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. In "Howl Palace," the first story in Nobody Gets Out Alive, the protagonist carefully prepares her home to be viewed by prospective buyers, even though "Anybody who buys a house on Diamond Lake brings in a backhoe and razes the place to rubble" (page 1). In your opinion, what is she attempting to show the family who will purchase Howl Palace?
2. Consider what we are told about Dutch's wolf room. Where did the wolf pelts come from? Why do you think they are so important to Dutch? What might this room and its contents represent for her?
3. In "High Jinks," Katrina's and Jamie's families are "twin families and each other's only real family, since their other families, with grandparents, lived thousands of miles away, in the Lower 48." What role does isolation play in this story and in the other stories? In what ways does it make the families' friendships stronger, and in what ways does it strain them?

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