BKMT READING GUIDES
A Stranger on the Planet
by Adam Schwartz
Hardcover : 336 pages
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2 members have read this book
Introduction
In the summer of 1969, twelve-year-old Seth lives with his unstable mother, Ruth, and his brother and sister in a two-bedroom apartment in New Jersey. His father lives with his new wife in a ten-room house and has no interest in Seth and his siblings. Seth is dying to escape from his mother's craziness and suffocating love, her marriage to a man she's known for two weeks, and his father's cold disregard.
Over the next four decades, Seth becomes the keeper of his family's memories and secrets. At the same time, he emotionally isolates himself from all those who love him, especially his mother. But Ruth is also Seth's muse, and this enables him to ultimately find redemption, for both himself and his family.
Excerpt
Sea of Tranquility• J u l y 1 9 6 9 •
My mother met Eddie Lipper in the Catskills on July 4, 1969, and married him in Las Vegas sixteen days later. She claimed they were pronounced man and wife at the exact moment Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. I didn’t believe her, but I was twelve years old that summer and would have welcomed just about any man into our lives. My mother was thirty-five, and I know the same was true for her. ...
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Discussion Questions
From the Publisher:1. “Do you know what your problem is?” Seth’s father says to him. “You remember
everything that’s not important.” What role does Seth’s memory play in the
novel? Despite his father’s comments, why is Seth’s capacity for remembering
“everything that’s unimportant” one of his most valuable and endearing qualities?
Near the end of the book, Seth comments, “We’d be the happiest family in the
world if no one remembered anything.” But how do the stories and memories of
any family define and enrich their lives? What is the role of memory and
storytelling in any family’s understanding of itself?
2. Seth’s brother, Seamus, accuses Seth of acting funny when he’s really sad. What
is the role of humor in a novel with so much sadness?
3. Seth is deeply in love with his wife, Molly, but confesses to his sister that he
didn’t love her well enough. Why doesn’t Seth do a better job of loving Molly?
4. On her deathbed, Ruth says to Seth, “I hope I was a good mother,” and Seth
replies, “Yes, of course you were.” Does Seth believe his own words? Is Ruth a
good mother? Is Seth a good son?
5. Like many children of difficult parents, Seth and Sarah are afraid of becoming
like their mother. But how are both Seth and Ruth “Strangers on the Planet”?
6. The one male character Seth forms a close relationship with is Raymond, who is
blind and gay. Why does Seth befriend Raymond, and why does he react so badly
when he realizes that Raymond is gay?
7. One of the turning points in the novel is when Seth decides to keep his story from
being published. Ten years later, he rereads the story and realizes that it was the
most meaningful thing he had accomplished in his life. Why does Seth feel this
way? What has he forfeited by abandoning his promise as a writer? What other
opportunities has Seth undermined in his life? Why does he act against his own
self-interest on so many occasions? Later on in the same chapter, Seth says, “I had
always been too cautious to embrace what I wanted; I had always played the odds
in life.” How does this quote help explain why Seth never writes another story
after “A Stranger on the Planet”?
8. In the chapter “Virgins,” Rachel looses her virginity to Seth, but how does Seth
loose his “virginity” as a writer? How does this experience change his life?
9. What is the relationship between the short story “A Stranger on the Planet” and
the novel itself? Early in the novel, Seth says, “Nothing seemed real to me except
the novels I read.” Why is literature such an important medium of self-knowledge
for Seth?
10. After Seth and Raymond see the movie The Searchers, Raymond comments:
“John Wayne isolates himself from love and caring. But when he discovers
Natalie Wood, he realizes his capacity for nurturing and love. She’s his best half
and he finally becomes a whole person.” How do Raymond’s words also
characterize Seth? Does Seth ever become a whole person? Does he ever find his
best half?
Notes From the Author to the Bookclub
Note from author Adam Schwartz: When I was three years old, my mother enrolled me in a local nursery school and told the principal that I was a slow learner. I was sitting next to my mother when she said this, and on the way home I asked her why she had called me a slow learner. She replied that she had told a “white lie,” because she thought I would get a better teacher if the principal thought I was a slow learner. Years later, as an adult, I brought this incident up with my mother and she told me that I misremembered it: She had told the principal I was a fast learner. I trusted my memory more than my mother’s, but she was right: I am a slow learner. I’ve wanted to be a writer all my life, and now, in my fifties, I’m about to publish my first novel, A Stranger on the Planet. I’ve been working on it for more than twenty years, though I didn't know it at the time. In 1988, I published a short story in The New Yorker titled “The Grammar of Love.” The story was vaguely based on my experiences teaching at an African American college in Chicago. It’s a story about a man who emotionally isolates himself from love and human connection, and who learns to imaginatively inhabit the lives of the people closest to him. “The Grammar of Love” was my first published story and I received a great deal of attention for it. I was certain my literary career was on a clear and accelerated track: I would publish a book of short stories—my literary apprenticeship—in two years, and then write a novel. Well, books, like life, don’t turn out the way you expect. Why did my book of stories turn into a novel, and why did it take me so long to write it? I would probably need to write another book to fully answer those questions, but I think the brief answer is that I was figuring out how to write about a deeply complex and emotionally difficult subject—my family. My parents married when they were in college and divorced nine years and three children later. Neither of them had any business being parents—they didn’t know how to care for themselves, much less children. My challenge—my inspiration—in writing the book was to humanize them as much as possible, to imaginatively inhabit their lives. Many writers feel they need to get a book under their belt before they’re ready to do justice to their true subject matter. I knew that I would eventually write a novel based on my family; I just didn’t know that the short stories I was writing would turn into that book. People who have read my novel ask me if it’s autobiographical. I reply that everything in the novel is invented and that it’s all absolutely true. For example, in the novel the character based on my father says to his son, “You remember everything that’s not important.” My father never actually said that to me, but it’s something he might have said, and it is certainly true. I do seem to remember everything that has ever happened to me, no matter how random or odd, and my job as novelist is to transform my memories into something meaningful and redemptive. I think the central character of my novel, a man who is pulled between a desire to escape from his family and a longing to connect with them, learns something very similar. After many years, he finally masters the grammar of love.Book Club Recommendations
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