But even as I write this I feel the ancient fear return, sense the danger in linking writing too closely with anything like “women’s work”—the fear that baking is too sensual and sentimental. Verging, in a literary sense, on the immoral — rather than the immortal. Baking especially can seem reductive, relying on precise formulas and measurements, unlike the artistic flourishes and spontaneity of cooking: baking seems premeditated, calculating. But every character has their own sort of scent and flavor — unless, of course, they taste only of the ink and the paper where they’re written. In which case, I think, there’s a kind of absence or loss — of imagination or courage, perhaps.
What to do? Characters, like living people, also have bodies and appetites. Does it have to matter so much who does the baking? Characters must also want to lift the cookie from its plate, to bite and feel the sweep of mind carrying them far out, beyond the page, into the widening sky, into the broad fields of time and imagination. Let them eat, I think. Let them live. Let them bake.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Avis and Brian show us how the responsibility of children — and in this case, of a runaway child — can transform a marriage. How does the entrance of children change the relationship between parents? How does it change the parents or parent individually?
2. What kind of a mother is Avis? Is it possible to trace her mothering style to the way she herself was mothered? Could she have been a better mother to each of her kids? Is it fair for anyone to judge?
3. What did you think of Brian’s comment about not bargaining “with terrorists” in regards to Felice? Are Felice’s parents too strict or too permissive? Did they let her go too easily?
4. Have you ever witnessed or been in a situation where the behavior of a “problem child” overshadowed the needs of his or her siblings? How might have Avis and Brian better handled their treatment of Stanley in the wake of Felice’s disappearance?
5. Why do you think Stanley grew up to become so principled? What kind of a father do you think he’ll be?
6. Did you feel sorry for Felice once you learned why she ran away? How about before? Do you believe that it was entirely out of self-punishment that she left the comforts of her home and family, or was she being selfish?
7. How does a child’s growing up and leaving home affect his or her parents? And what if they face an extreme case of this departure, as with a runaway or a child who chooses to leave home too soon?
8. What do you think is the significance of the novel’s focus on food, in terms of both Felice’s baking and Stanley’s organic market? Is it just representative of today’s foodie obsessions, or is there a deeper meaning?
9. How do you feel about the fact that at least one other street kid in Felice’s crowd comes from a wealthy background? Are these kids just misguided rebels, or did you feel they must have had real reasons for choosing to live on the streets?
10. How does the author’s fascination with Miami come through in the novel? How might the novel have been different if it took place somewhere else?
11. How did you feel about the fact that the real-estate scam was revealed right before Brian invested his money? Why do you think the author gave him a second chance? What does his particular situation say about the real-estate landscape in general?
12. Is there a dark side to America’s reputation as paradise?
13. What do you make of Avis’s friendship with her Haitian neighbor? Are their situations similar or impossible to compare?
14. In what ways does the novel show us how we might be creative? Think of how characters like Avis, Emerson, and Stanley demonstrate creativity in their own ways.
15. Does Felice “grow up” by the end of the novel? What does it mean to grow up, and is one ever finished doing so?
16. Does Felice’s family really come together at the end? Or does it seem as though Felice is just continuing to run away from her problems?