Backstory - Book Club Questions

I hope that these questions help to start fruitful conversation and would love to hear other questions you talk about (or any other comments). You can reach the author at fiveferriesnovel@gmail.com. Thanks

1.     Ansel Tone is a rock star history professor who drives fast cars and runs with glamorous women. He also abuses drugs, sleeps with his students and assistants and plagiarizes history books and term papers. Clearly, Ansel starts out the novel as the character to hate, but what is the main failing that makes him the bad guy? Does he sufficiently pay for his flaws in the end?

2.     Ansel Tone’s lectures about an academic who believes the main purpose of propaganda is not to make people believe in dogma or accept an idea, but rather to provoke them to action. Is that also the intent of current politicians who label inconvenient truths as “fake news”?

3.     While the phrase “Me Too” was initially used as early as 2006 by sexual assault survivor Tarana Burke to draw attention to sexual abuse and harassment, the movement spread virally as a hashtag in October 2017 following allegations against media mogul Harvey Weinstein. It is 2016 when Becca has her tryst with Ansel, the famous author and professor who was also her employer, and who then casually dismisses the incident. What do you think of how Becca deals with this?

4.     The parent-child relationship is important to the primary characters in Backstory. Ansel feels guilt about his mother’s death and oppressed by his father’s expectations, and then discovers his ten-year-old son. Charlie escapes an abusive father and a mother too weak to fight back. Tess also escapes an overbearing mother, although it may be hard to be sympathetic to her. Finally, Dutch and Becca have caring relationships with their parents. How do these filial bonds mold the characters and foretell their actions?

5.     Car crash tragedies fill Ansel Tone’s life, including those of his mother and his college sweetheart, two women to whom he seems attached and whose fates are tied up in his behavior. But what about the death of Professor Brandon Doogan in the race car Ansel helped maintain? Did you suspect Ansel was involved in that crash?

6.     Charlie and Tess had on the surface a storybook marriage. He was a successful author. She was a beautiful young lawyer with a brilliant career. They lived in the magnificent Mountain House. Given all this, are their actions believable as the story moves to its climax?

7.     Is Backstory a work of literary fiction, an ensemble piece, a mystery/suspense drama, or some combination of these or something else? How does the point-of-view shifting among the eight major characters affect this determination?  

8. Who fills out your dream cast for Backstory, the movie? In particular, who should play Ansel, Charlie, Tess, Bob, Dutch, Molly, Becca, and True – and any of the supporting roles that strike you?

9. In Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert introduced a counterpoint method comprised of parallel interlinings and interruptions of two or more conversations or trains of thought. In his country fair episode, the action of the fair is interlaced with the private conversation in the inn, where Rodolphe commences his seduction of Emma. Backstory employs a similar counterpoint structure in the Yankee Stadium scene, where a baseball game takes place at the same time as Bud tries to sell insurance to his friends, Charlie looks for help with his novel, and Ansel manages his dual crises about Charlie’s book and keeping Dutch from digging up the past. Is this method used effectively in Backstory?

10. Backstory shows how focus on selective aspects of a character’s personality can lead to false conclusions. What traits of Ansel Tone and Charlie Piedmont led you initially to conclude what caused the fatal crash and what traits of each did you overlook in reaching this conclusion?