Leaving
by Richard Dry
List Price: $14.95
Pages: 464
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0312302878
Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback
An epic, engrossing first novel of
an African-American family, its dispossession and regeneration.
Leaving begins in 1959, when newly-widowed and pregnant Ruby Washington and her
half brother, Easton, board a bus in rural South Carolina destined for California. Their
lives and the lives of Ruby's daughter Lida and her children Love and Li'l Pit are played
out against the turbulent backdrop of the 1960s and the drug-infested neighborhoods of the
1980s and 1990s. Ruby and Lida struggle to embrace each other without disturbing the
family secret that eventually drives Lida into prostitution; Easton grows into a
charismatic community leader without control over his own inner world; and Love attempts
to rescue his brother from the inhospitable streets of America.
Leaving places, leaving family, and leaving the prisms of racism and poverty-this debut
novel is a remarkable synthesis of history and intimately-observed everyday life.
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1. How does the structure of Leaving
contribute to the themes explored in the novel?
2. What do the characters attempt to
leave in this novel other than physical places? Can the act of leaving be applied to
historical and psychological contexts?
3. To what degree are the characters
successful or unsuccessful at leaving?
4. What role do the slave narratives
and historical documents play in the book? Look at each Santa Rita chapter and discuss the
relationship it has to the development of the characters, plot, and themes?
5. What does the intersection of the
personal and the historical say about the confluence of individual and societal
responsibility?
6. Is the race of the author
significant? Why or why not? Does the same apply to gender?
7. What issues about relationships
and self-knowledge apply to the human condition regardless of race?
8. Consider a particular passage in
which Dry uses description to create emotional impact. How is emotion conveyed through
physical detail?
9. How does Lida's relationship with
Ruby parallel Love Easton Childer's relationship with Elise?
10. How does Love LeRoy's
relationship to his brother, Li'l Pit, reflect his notions of responsibility and manhood?
11. What is the connection between
Love Easton's sense of self and his relationships with female characters?
12. What differences exist between
Love and Li'l Pit and how do they contribute to their development?
13. What differences and
similarities exist between Joyce and Love?
14. Who is the person reading and
speaking in the Santa Rita chapters? What significance does it have?
15. How do the characters undermine
traditional notions of good and evil?
16. In what ways do the epigrams
reflect themes in the novel?
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