BKMT READING GUIDES
And She Was: A Novel
by Cindy Dyson
Paperback : 291 pages
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Sweeping across centuries and into the Aleutian Islands of Alaska's Bering Sea, And She Was begins with a decision and a broken taboo when three starving Aleut mothers decide to take their fate into their own hands. Two hundred and fifty years later, by the time Brandy, a floundering, ...
Introduction
Sweeping across centuries and into the Aleutian Islands of Alaska's Bering Sea, And She Was begins with a decision and a broken taboo when three starving Aleut mothers decide to take their fate into their own hands. Two hundred and fifty years later, by the time Brandy, a floundering, trashy, Latin-spewing cocktail waitress, steps ashore in the 1980s, Unalaska Island has absorbed their dark secret—a secret that is both salvation and shame.
In a tense interplay between past and present, And She Was explores Aleut history, mummies, conquest, survival, and the seamy side of the 1980s in a fishing boomtown at the edge of the world, where a lost woman struggles to understand the gray shades between heroism and evil, and between freedom and bondage.
Discussion Questions
Did you like Brandy as a character in the beginning of the book? How did your initial feelings about her color the story for you? Discuss how your feelings about Brandy evolved during the story.Brandy experiences the Aleut women as “other” than herself. Did this viewpoint contribute to her life-changing experience? Is thinking of a different race or subculture as “other” always negative?
Place is an important aspect of the book. What would change for you if the book had been set somewhere familiar? Do you believe, as Brandy does, that a place can change a person?
Both in Brandy’s life and the generations of Aleut women, the absence of men — whether because they are at war, unable to act in their traditional roles, or dead — is the impetus for stepping outside traditional gender roles. Can breaking gender taboos still be considered feministic acts when the men are gone? Or is feminism meaningful only in the context of men?
How did the character of Les serve the themes of the book? What did his sexuality and the community’s reaction to him add to the story?
Part of Brandy’s transformation is contingent upon her realizing that the Aleut women did not see themselves as victims. Brandy, the daughter of a slut and saddled with a liquor name, is very much a product of her upbringing. In your mind, was Brandy a victim of her past? Did she see herself as a victim? Do you think that seeing ourselves as victims helps or hinders us in overcoming issues spawned in our pasts?
The bookstore owner, Anna, says that women are in charge of whatever merged culture comes after conquest. The Aleut women become the dominate force in their culture’s survival. Is Ann right? Why?
Drugs and alcohol are prominent in Brandy’s subculture. Why do you think the author chose to treat drinking and drugs as a backdrop rather than a cause for both Brandy’s and the Aleut women’s problems? Why do you think the author never has Brandy surrender drugs or alcohol in her quest for change?
Beginning with Aya and continuing to Bellie, the generations of Aleut women each commit crimes, at least by their own culture’s standards. In the end, even Brandy doesn’t know if they were heroes or villains. What do you think they were? Did your views about the righteousness of their actions change during the story? How do you feel about Brandy using their actions to begin her own transformation despite her inability to categorize their acts as good or evil? Are there issues in your own life for which you have been unable to see clearly what is right or wrong?
One of the primary ideas of the book is that there are perhaps greater evils than simply doing something wrong or bad. Do you agree with Brandy that the act that makes us fully human is embracing Eve’s gift, to be free to direct ourselves to either good or evil? How does this notion sit with your spiritual or religious beliefs?
Because Thad is such a nice guy — the hero who never shows — some readers have felt that Brandy should have ended up with him. Could Thad have saved Brandy? How would her transformation have been different if she had remained with him?
Brandy refuses to tell you the who’s and what’s and where’s of how her life turned out. What do you think became of Brandy?
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