1. Kathryne's best friend, Joy, says, "We're only as happy as our unhappiest child." Can a mother love her child too much? When does a mother's normal concern for her child's well-being become an abnormal dependency on her child's happiness?

2. What advice would you give Kathryne when Early is a child? When he's a teenager?

3. Kathryne idolizes her mother, although she knows that "some people spend their lives railing against the way they were raised, every action a reaction to their parents, a fierce determination to do the opposite with their own children." In what ways do you parent like your parents? In what ways are you different? If you do not have children, would you consider your own parents permissive?

4. With whom do you identify more -- Kathryne or Peter? How did each of their childhoods contribute to the people they became?

5. How responsible is Peter for Early's downfall?

6. Kathryne enlarges photographs of Peter and herself, then mounts them on cardboard to use as masks for Joy's New Year's Eve Mardi Gras party. Kathryne thinks it "would be funny to use our own faces to create an illusion." In what ways is Kathryne's life an illusion? How does this fit with her love of movies?

7. How is Early dependent on Chip? How is Chip dependent on Early?

8. Must we all eventually come to terms with our limits in combating injustice? Do you agree with Peter that "we may want to do the right thing, but sometimes our own self-interest takes over"?

9. Are Kathryne and Phyllis bound to one another? Explain.

10. How inevitable was it that Peter would end up marrying Ann? Is this part of his growth, or evidence of a lack of growth?

11. How inevitable was it that Peter would end up marrying Ann? Is this part of his growth, or evidence of a lack of growth?