1. On the day her daughter receieves a diagnosis of Angelman’s Syndrom, Alice says, “If we let her, [Gloria] would be happy.” To what extent do the ‘normal’ characters in Fierce allow the disabled characters be happy? Apply the question to society.

2. Resilient people adapt positively when faced with adversity or trauma. Compare the degree of adversity faced and resilience shown by Penny in We Were Scenes of Grief, and by Judith in If the World was Flat. Do you see yourself as resilient? Why or why not?

3. Penny has an epiphany in We Were Scenes of Grief when she says of the unnamed officer, “I touched her hand. It felt hot and firm like a rock on the beach. She smelled of seaweed and I realized that if she was the beach, then I must be the sea.”

What does this scene say about the importance of human connection? Give examples from other stories of social connectedness and social isolation. Do you think intimacy with others is necessary to happiness, or that people can thrive despite loneliness?

4. In The Fierce with the Fierce, when Dulcey asks Treeny, “Are you gone too?” Treeny answers, “I’m whatever you want me to be.”

Treeny provides comfort, but she is also a figment of Dulcey’s imagination. What does this self-deception say about Dulcey? Give other examples where characters use self-deception as a coping strategy. Have you ever used this strategy in your own life? Was it effective? Why or why not?

5. In River Rising Tom recalls how, “Getting to Everlasting, Yukon, all the way from Surrey, B.C., had not been easy. He had tried twice before, when he was twelve and fourteen, but both times the police had caught him before he got too far and delivered him back to whichever foster home he was living in. This time, however, he was the legal age to hit the road and run out of money without anyone caring.”

Do you see the experiences of Liam in The Indian Act, and Tom in River Rising as an indictment against the foster care system? How does a childhood of constant dislocation affect schooling, peer interaction, and social bonding? Should at-risk children be made available for adoption early in the process? Why or why not?

6. In The Indian Act, Caucasian Liam says to Franky, “Maybe I could learn the old ways too.” Does he achieve this goal, and, if so, in what way? How does the idyllic First Nations family in The Indian Act differ from the mythological old ananaksaq in Sedna, and the flawed but loving Yarddog family in River Rising? Do their encounters with First Nations culture change Clio or River? If so, in what ways?

7. Fierce starts with a quote from a Robert Service poem: “There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, and the rivers all run God knows where.” Water in the form of rivers, oceans, rain, tears and even the overflow from a bathtub plays important practical and symbolic roles in most of the stories. Give examples and discuss the symbolism.

8. A classic Canlit theme is human vs. nature. Discuss instances of stories in Fierce where nature is portrayed as a) an enemy, and b) a divine force.

9. The title We Were Scenes of Grief applies to all of the stories in Fierce to some degree. How does psychologist John Bowlby’s idea that grief is the ebb and flow of processes such as shock and numbness, yearning and searching, disorganization and despair relate to the characters in Fierce?

10. Which definition of ‘fierce’ best applies to the protagonists in the collection — “violently hostile” or “furiously determined”? How does experience necessitate fierceness in Penny, Dulcey, Cally, and Cricket? Does their fierceness resonate with you or repel you? Do you consider yourself to be fierce, and, if so, in what ways and why?

11. “He’s already defaced everything else,” Wanda says of her son — a teenager who was born without a mouth or nose — when he sketches an accusation against her drunkenness on the family’s new Maytag with an indelible felt pen. “Why not this too?”

How are puns, satire, black humour and absurdity used in Ugly Cruising and to what effect? How are they used in the other stories? Does black humour serve to hide or to reveal the truth?

12. “Henry looked at Tom then, really looked. And he’d spoken, just one phrase with the first letters transposed, “Sy mon.” “My son”, wasn’t much, but it was more than some people ever got in their entire fucking lives.”

When Henry claims Tom as his son in this brief moment of recognition, the pain of decades-old abandonment seems to fall away. How is the theme of parental acceptance/rejection explored in Seaweed, The Indian Act, Like Utah’s Bingham Canyon Mine, and We Danced Without Strings? What is the importance of parental acceptance in your own life?

13. In Like Utah’s Bingham Canyon Mine suicidal Cindy Gourlie is granted absolution by Gwen, a target of her childhood bullying.

What role does forgiveness play in the other stories? In your life?

14. Who is River referring to when she says, “Some things are so ugly they’re beautiful.” What do you think she means, and do you agree with her? Can this also be said of the book as a whole?