driving. His sons,
David Junior and Jacob, were in the backseat. I was thirty-eight
years old. The landscape we were leaving was like the landscape
in a children's book. Shiny new cars beetled to office
buildings. Below, the Grand River curved like cursive drawn
with a thick silver pen across our part of Michigan. We zipped
past bare sun-warm fields on the outskirts of Grand Rapids,
down the new highway to the airport, and I snuggled into
Dave. I had a strong family feeling. I was eager for him to meet
my wild daddy, my dear peculiar mom. Dave was willing, the
boys were excited. None of us were awake yet.

Earlier that week, I'd come back to Michigan from upstate
New York, where I was working as a visiting writer during my
sabbatical year, so we could all go toFlorida together. Dave
had picked me up at the airport. I saw him before he saw me,
walking down the corridor, past the narrow sports bar. Dave
always wore ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide may contain spoilers!

Sellers struggles, as a child, to find safety with her mother and then with her father. As an adult, in what ways does she comes to terms with each parent's failure to provide that safety and constancy?

Sellers' mother constantly checks locked doors, and worries she is being followed. Her father cross-dresses and drinks around the clock. In what ways are her parents alike, and in what key ways are they different?

Sellers never finds out the cause of her face blindness. She also never discovers a diagnosis for her father's strange, disturbing behaviors. A