Vanishing World Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Could Artificial Wombs Become a Reality? and our BookBrowse Review of Vanishing World.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Early on, we learn how the narrator's relationship to romance, sex, and the body is shaped by her mother. She writes, of the evenings where her mother works late, "The house felt like it was covered in the sticky fingerprints of her soul, and I was relieved that I couldn't see her face" (26). How does the narrator's relationship with her mother—specifically as this ghostly, nearly haunting, presence—set the tone for the novel?
2. For much of the book, Amane frequently turns to her fictional lovers in times of need, pulling them out of her Prada pouch while on a walk at the river or in the bathroom at work. In fact, she explains to her coworker, "Some people say it's escaping reality, but I don't agree. Rather, it's nourishing my soul so that I can live in reality" (85). What does Amane's reliance on these fictional characters reveal about the rest of her relationships in the book?
3. Early on, Amane distinguishes between the two types of sexual love she feels, one with "a real person," and the other with "someone in a story, the former of which involves "taste and smell," the latter of which "was solely a conversation with my own flesh" (34). What do you make of these distinctions, and how do they change as the book progresses?

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