"The Ladies Auxiliary" discussion.

Hey book club friends, are you out there? I'm feeling like this group is slowing dying off. What do you think? Do you think we should continue this? Let me know.

For now, if any of you read the book this month, I thought we could answer 1 or 2 (or more) of these questions to get some discussion going.

1. The novel opens with an almost pastoral description of Memphis's Jewish neighborhood, typologically evoking a "city on the hill" image. How do the themes that imbue this first scene set the tone for the rest of the book?

2. Find a passage in which a Jewish ceremony is described. In what ways does Mirvis show the myriad, even contradictory, meanings that it contains for each of its participants?

3. The use of the first-person plural pronoun for the narrative voice emphasizes the collective, uniform nature of the community. The story is told not by any one member of the community but by a chorus. How does Mirvis play with this voice to emphasize moments of dissension or doubt? At what points is the voice the least omniscient?

4. What did you make of the seeming role reversal between mothers and daughters, with the mothers portrayed as na•ve and the daughters as more perceptive and worldly?

5. What do you think will happen after the end of the novel? Will Batsheva stay? To what extent will she be integrated, if at all?

6. How do you imagine Ayala to be five or ten years after the end of the novel?

7. This book, with its independent, proud heroine, could be read alongside Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (even down to the strange apparitions in the sky). How do they both explore issues of tradition, tolerance, belief, individuality, and forgiveness? In what important ways do they diverge?

8. What characters did you identify with most? Was it always Batsheva?

9. Do you think Yosef's doubt about Judaism predated Batsheva's arrival? Or did it grow out of their conversations?

10. Was there ever a point where you agreed with those who thought that Batsheva had "crossed the line"?

11. How and where does Mirvis blur the division between religious faith and small-town provincialism?

12. Do you think it is possible to carve out a space for individualism within an orthodoxy? Is what Batsheva attempts even possible or, in the end, do you have to choose one over the other? (Perhaps think of other stories--Voltaire's Candide, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Henry James's Daisy Miller--in which someone presents a challenge to an established order.).

13. What do you make of the vision in the sky that ends the novel? How can it be read along with the opening scene of the novel?

Here's some of my thoughts:

I liked this book. I felt like I could relate to each character. I think that is why it is such a likable book, because the author helped you relate to the characters even the ones who were not to so nice.

I loved hearing about the Jewish Orthodox religion. It is so fascinating to me and I can actually see similarities to the LDS faith.

The character that I enjoyed the most was not not Batsheva, although I do wish I could be more like her. I really loved Mimi. I thought she was good hearted and a great balance between the characters. She was somehow able to remain friends with everyone and follow her faith without making anyone mad.

As sad as it is, I did sometimes agree with the women in the book about Batsheva. Sometimes I felt like she absolutely crossed the line. I think if are going to host a party at your house as a responsible youth leader, you don't let the party get out of hand. I felt like sometimes she was trying so hard to be their friend, that she lost some of her authority.The party was a mistake and sounds like quite a disaster. Although, I do not blame her for the runaway, that was bound to happen anyway.