The Barn Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Willie Reed: The Witness Who Returned Home and our BookBrowse Review of The Barn.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

The Barn explores with depth and care the murder of Emmett Till. While Till's murder has been seared into American history, the exact story of what happened has been morphed, adjusted, and at times completely erased until now. The following questions ask you to examine what you knew, what you know now, and how we go forward while recognizing the brutality of the past.

1. In Part 1, Thompson mentions how, "Till's murder, a brutal window into the truth of a place and its people, had been pushed almost completely from the local collective memory…" What are your memories of Till's murder prior to reading this book? Can you remember the first time you learned of it and the details used to explain the tragedy? Do they differ from the events mapped out in The Barn?
2. It is stated that for Patrick Weems, "…it is his goal to preserve all the places associated with Emmett's murder, with the hope that these places might teach future generations to be better than their ancestors." We have seen similar methods used around the world, using remnants of past tragedies to deter people from repeating them. Do you view this as an effective preventive method? Do people heed history as a warning?
3. On the decision of whether or not to make Emmett's body more "presentable," Mamie Till-Mobley historically said, "No, let the world see what I've seen." What do you make of her decision? Is it the decision you would have made? Compared to the videos we see now circulated on social media of brutalized Black bodies, do you think sharing images of this nature has successfully deterred anti Blackness? What is the lasting impact of these images?

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.