Discussion

Photo, original caption: San Francisco, California. Many children of Japanese ancestry attended Raphael Weill public School, Geary and Buchanan Streets, prior to evacuation. This scene shows first- graders during flag pledge ceremony. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry will be housed in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration. Provision will be effected for the continuance of education.
Photo: Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

As a boy in the 1940s, I spent every summer on a Vermont farm without electricity or plumbing, so I was very engaged in the agricultural setting Purvis-Smith eloquently describes. She does a fantastic job of portraying wartime Colorado and a small town's experience of change. ... I hope lots of people will read the novel and learn about an important period in America's history.
Rev. Roger Nicholson

Question 1
What motivates Martha? What drives her to tackle what she sees as problems in her family and community?

Question 2
Martha seems to be aware that she sometimes loses perspective and/or emotional balance. What are some of those occasions? Are her responses proportional?

Question 3
Martha encounters various forms of prejudice. What are these? Is she more conscious of some of them than others?

Question 4
Does Martha’s preoccupation by what she sees as her recurring failure to save the lives of people in her family and community affect her professional effectiveness?

Question 5
On various occasions, Martha is cautioned not to publically express her frustrations and disagreement with prevailing community attitudes. Under what circumstances should she heed that caution, or not?

Question 6
Martha finds inspiration in Dorothy Thompson’s editorial admonition that “In favorable moments, we must not relax; in distressful moments we must pull ourselves together. At no time must our efforts be affected by our moods.” Thompson was a well-known journalist and war correspondent expelled from Germany by the Nazis in 1934. She testified before the Senate in 1939 that the United States had no business remaining neutral in face of the Nazi menace. How might someone reading Thompson’s column today react to her admonition about the need to set aside feelings/emotion as prerequisite to meeting the challenges at hand?

Question 7
People living during World War II have been called the "Greatest Generation." What qualities did they exhibit that cause them to be categorized in that way? Which, if any, characters in Greenwood Riven show these qualities?

Question 8
Infant and maternal mortality rates were much higher in the 1940s than they are in the twenty-first century, which had a profound impact on the emotional lives of parents and the decisions folks made about marriage and bearing children. When a mother died, older children, her or her husband's siblings, or other relatives, often assumed responsibility for raising the children if the father did not remarry. How do these pressures compare to those that families face in the twenty-first century?

Question 9
Confinement and isolation of, as Martha calls them, “inconvenient people” are recurring themes in Greenwood Riven. Who are these inconvenient people, and in what ways are they treated differently, or similarly, today?

Each character was believable and relatable,... as is your own extended family, work place, or community. The vivid historical setting details were gripping. The vast gap between responses to the moral and ethical questions of post-Pearl Harbor among rural Coloradans was not far removed from the passionate political debates going on today.
Katherine Plummer

**Discussion Questions for Greenwood Riven-Faith Book Group**

Question 1
Martha, Max Lambert, and other characters in Greenwood draw on their faith to face any number of challenges. What are some of those challenges and how is their faith a resource?

Question 2
Papa says grace when the family celebrates Carrie’s homecoming, and, after the U.S. surrenders at Corregidor, a distressed Clara stops by for dinner and offers the grace. What do these prayers imply about their expectations of God and themselves?

Question 3
Characters in the novel sometimes refer to the divine as The Good Lord. Given her suffering and loss, Elsie Lambert challenges her husband, Otto, about this view of God’s character. Otto answers Elsie, and Martha silently disagrees with him. Would you have accepted his answer as adequate in the face of Elsie’s despair or would you agree with Martha? How would you answer Elsie?

Question 4
When Martha first meets Rev. Behm, she and Art have just returned from the mortuary. Are his responses to Martha's questions about suffering and death different from Otto Lambert's response to Elsie? Do they seem to satisfy her?

Question 5
Does Martha think of her family role, her professional role, and her civic responsibilities as a calling from God? If so, does she fulfill that calling? In her eyes? In the eyes of others?

Question 6
Many of Greenwood’s residents turn to Rev. Macgill in their shock and grief at the time of Frank’s death and Dolores’ rape. Martha seeks guidance from Rev. Behm a number of times and urges others to do the same when they are under duress. What does this regard for their pastors reveal about their belief in God?