The Whore's Child

Sister Ursula belonged to an all but extinct order of Belgian nuns who conducted what little spiritual business remained to them in a decrepit old house purchased by the diocese seemingly because it was unlikely to outlast them. Since it was on Forest Avenue, a block from our house, I'd seen Sister Ursula many times before the night she turned up in class, but we never had spoken. She drove a rusted-out station wagon that was always crowded with elderly nuns who needed assistance getting in and out. Though St. Francis Church was only a few blocks away, that was too far to walk for any of them except Sister Ursula, her gait awkward but relentless. "You should go over there and introduce yourself someday," Gail, my wife, suggested more than once. "Those old women have been left all alone." Her suspicion was later confirmed by Sister Ursula herself. "They are waiting for us to die," she confessed. "Impatient of how we clutch to our miserable existences."

"I'm sure...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Such delicacy and compassion, or is she a very special case? What do the younger students' comments reveal about them?
   
   
2. The act of telling or writing one's story is usually thought of as therapeutic. What is the cost of Sister Ursula's compulsion to write her story? Given what she learns in the process, how do you imagine she will respond to this new knowledge?
   
   
3. The critic Diane Roberts noted, "Russo is a master of the small moment as nuclear explosion, the life-changing turn of the screw" (Houston Chronicle). In which stories are such moments of insight particularly powerful?
   
   
4. In several of these stories, husbands and wives are seriously at odds, and children are caught between feuding parents, or parents have to ...