For Book Club Readers
Dear Book Club Readers,
I
want to thank you for selecting
Unanimous Verdict for reading by your book club.
Book clubs like yours are increasingly important to
maintaining the business of the published word in an extended format
– i.e., a book – as well as encouraging a greater sense of community
in our world by joining to discuss books.
It sometimes seems that the better able we are to communicate
through electronics, the less of consequence we are able to say to
each other and the less connected to each other we feel.
Book clubs are a great way to counter these trends, along
with encouraging your children to become book readers.
I hope that you have found
Unanimous Verdict worthy of your
trust. If I did not
believe it had merit, I would not have had it published.
Despite whatever flaws you find (and, surely, there are
many), I hope that you will agree.
Listed below are some questions your club
might wish to consider when you discuss
Unanimous Verdict. I
have tried to word them so as not to give too much of the book away in
case you haven’t finished it yet.
If your group purchases at least five copies of
Unanimous Verdict, paperback or electronic
(see How to Buy (click here), then I will try to participate in your book
club session by telephone for 15 minutes, schedule allowing, to
answer any questions or hear your comments. E-mail me at
jamesakidney@unanimousverdict.com with the date and time you
want me to participate and the phone number for me to call.
Please give as much advance notice as possible. I'll e-mail
you back as soon as I can.
I welcome any comments you wish to
make about the book. Send them
to the same e-mail address. I
only ask that they be respectful.
Check out the related books at the
Amazon Store. Enjoy
Unanimous Verdict and I hope you have
a rousing meeting about it.
Sincerely,
James A. Kidney
jamesakidney@unanimousverdict.com
Suggested Issues for Book Club Discussion
The Novel
1.
How realistically do you think the author portrayed the
principal periods in the book – 1954 and the years immediately
following World War I?
2.
Were the major characters – Ezra, Neil, Lou,
Mrs. Van Dyke, the Farwell clan and some Supreme Court
justices – distinct characters who engaged your imagination?
Or were they too obviously symbols of one thing or another
for some message the author seemed to be trying to deliver?
3.
Was there a message or messages in
Unanimous Verdict?
If you think so, how successfully was the message
delivered? Did it
interfere with or add to the value of the novel?
4.
Which character engaged your imagination the most?
Why? Which
character did you like the most?
Why?
5.
Clearly Neil wrestled with new attitudes about himself and
race as the novel progressed.
Did other characters change?
6.
Unanimous Verdict
is a bit of a structural challenge, jumping from 1954 to the first
quarter of the twentieth century and back again, then back to 1922.
What was your reaction to the "flashbacks"? Did they confuse
you? Did they add or detract from your enjoyment of the book?
7. The Farwell/River's Edge story comes in the middle of the detective
hunt. Did you enjoy the interruption or were you anxious to
return to the story of Neil, Lou and Ezra? Discuss ways the
author might have handled these plot issues differently.
The Law
8. There
are two potential dissenting voices in the Supreme Court run-up to
the Brown decision, those of Farwell and Jackson.
Although they speak in very different tones, they share some
similar constitutional concerns.
Do those concerns continue with us today, in cases about race
and other matters?
9. The Earl Warren Supreme Court was considered very
liberal by many. The
current court is considered much more conservative, with a liberal
minority. Although it is
hard to imagine not voting as the Brown court did today, how do you
think today’s justices would have voted if they were on the court in
1954?
10.
The Chief and Justice Black clearly differed about using tactics
common to politics to influence other justices.
Imagine yourself a Supreme Court justice.
Which side would you be on and why? Would your view
depend on how important you thought the case being decided?
11. The Chief
clearly had little hope that the U.S. Congress would outlaw
segregation. Was that a
good reason for the Supreme Court to act as it did?
Segregation
12. Are Justice
Farwell and Buster Roach simply products of their times and
upbringing? Is that an
excuse for their attitudes about race?
About women? Are
their differences greater than their similarities?
13. There is no
evidence in Unanimous
Verdict that John Calhoun Farwell personally beat his
employees or otherwise physically mistreated them.
He rewarded those who rescued his daughter with a promotion.
How would you rate him on his treatment of Negroes, taking
into account his time and region?
14. John Calhoun
Farwell, a wealthy man, was able to appeal to very poor southern
whites when he ran for office, as did many other politicians in the
post-Reconstruction south.
What devices do you imagine he and others like him used to
achieve such success?
15. Neil’s
parents and his other relatives believed themselves to be tolerant
and reasonable about racial issues.
How fairly does the description of them in the book reflect
that of middle class northern whites during the 1950s and ‘60s?
How well does it reflect the attitudes of your parents, if
you are white? Was such
an attitude justified then?
Some whites were more liberal, many more were much more
conservative or outright racist. What would
you have been, putting yourself in those times?
Where are you in the times of today?
16. Ezra was
highly skeptical of the impact of Supreme Court decisions and other
legal advances favoring African-Americans.
Was he right?
Were these actions helpful?
What else was needed besides new laws and favorable court
decisions?
The
Main Characters
17. How do you
feel about Neil Endicott?
Is he too weak?
Too naïve? He was a
combat Marine and a cop, yet seems surprised by his own feelings
about African-Americans even after these experiences.
Why is this so?
What role, if any, does the recollection of Elijah Lincoln serve in
describing Neil’s reactions to race?
Is Neil the same at the end of the book as he was at the
beginning?
18. Mrs. Van Dyke
and her son both were troubled by the color of their skins.
Mrs. Van Dyke was troubled by other people; her son troubled
himself. For
African-American readers, the question is whether these caste-like
issues based on skin color still exist among African-Americans?
Do they exist in an inverse way after “black is beautiful”
and “black pride” have taken hold?
Is a blacker complexion now considered a sign of greater blackness
and cause for pride and is a person with a lighter skin deemed by
some African-Americans as somehow a lesser person?
Why? Although not
precisely about skin color, a very similar issue came up in the 2008
presidential campaign about biracial parentage.
What was your position?
Did it change?
Did it change your thinking about color or blackness or just your thinking about
Barack Obama?
19. For
non-African-American readers:
What are your thoughts on varied shades of skin color among
blacks? Do you have a
different reaction to African-Americans who are lighter shades?
Why? See the
questions about Barack Obama in question 18.
What are your answers?
Did it matter to you that Obama had a white mother?
A black father?
20. Lou King
seems to have it all in 1954, with two children in the Ivy Leagues
pursuing professional careers.
Clearly, Lou’s family was in the tiny minority, but was this
situation even possible in 1954?
Was there a black middle class that long ago?
If so, do you think they were strong and vocal backers of the
civil rights movement?
If not, why not? What seems
to have been Lou King’s personal attitude toward fighting for civil
rights? Toward white people?
21. Ezra Lowell
clearly worked to improve the lot of his fellow Chicago Negroes.
What drove him to take this turn toward education?
22. Ezra is
resistant to Neil solely because he is white.
Given his biography, was Ezra
justified in this “reverse racism”?
Other than with respect solely to Neil, did his attitude change in
the novel? If not, should it have?
