Ask a question Prodigal Summer Questions Our Book Club will be reading Prodigal Summer next month. What question would you most like us to discuss? Do you have a background in biology or medicine, like the character in Prodigal Summer? I am really enjoying the omnipresent sense of fertility in Prodigal Summer, and I think you've done a wonderful job of creating an erotic current through the narrative thread... Here's my question: Why is it that Eros seems to have disappeared from modern writing, replaced instead by raunchy sex? How did you manage to address the miracle of human sexuality without making it either pornographic or giggle-inducing? What made you decide to write about Appalachia? I am from the region and am always interested what draws others there. Did you go to Appalachia or spend time living there to research this book? If not, how did you do research for it? Critics have compared your work to that of Henry David Thoreau. Are you, or were you, inspired by his writing? Why did you start writing? Is it something you've done all your life, or was there one event that sparked your need to write? Out of all of your books, which is your favorite? is it always the last one you've written? Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? What is your writing routine-where do you sit, when do you write, what do you wear? Did you have to practice or get any kind of training to read the audio of Prodigal Summer? Where do the bird songs come from on the audio of Prodigal Summer? Poisonwood Bible Questions Could you comment on the research and life experience that helped you to accurately recreate the world of missionaries and Congolese villagers in your latest novel? Your depiction is enthralling! This novel, The Poisonwood Bible, seems a departure from your previous work. Why a novel about the Congo? The evangelist Nathan Price never speaks for himself in this tale, we only see him through the eyes of his wife and daughters. Why did you not give Nathan a voice? Are you sympathetic at all to Nathan Price? Do you consider this novel to be antagonistic toward Christianity, or missionaries? Which character or scene is the most important in the book, in your opinion? What does this novel say about marriage? Why did you go to all the trouble of telling the story from five different points of view? Were you consciously trying to create a parallel to Little Women, in this story of a mother and four daughters? Would you characterize this book as a postcolonial epic, a psychological novel, a family saga, or what? One of the greatest challenges a writer faces is creating multi-faceted characters, and that challenge becomes particularly difficult when the character is as one-sided and single-minded as Nathan Price in The Poisonwood Bible. What are your feelings about Nathan? Do you believe you've done him and his faith justice? Other Questions Did you study Latin in high school? If so, do you now find it useful to your work as a writer? Can't your paperbacks be less expensive? Why do you write mostly about women? This spring while I was driving across the country I listened to High Tide in Tucson on audiotape, and loved it. Why can't I get all your books on tape? Does it feel strange to get letters praising a book you wrote a decade ago? How do you come up with names for your characters? I couldn't find Pittman, KY on a map. Does it exist, or did you make it up? An aspiring author from Phoenix has written to ask some practical questions: Is it possible to become a writer if you don't like to read? To what extent is your fiction based on your own life, and how much of your main character is really you? I just watched a PBS documentary about you, in which you mentioned your "ten rules for writing fiction," but only explained two of them. Would you mind divulging the other eight? No doubt the show's editors cut them without realizing that aspiring writers would hyperventilate at their omission. (Gasp!) Bookshelf | For Reading Groups | Listen | Home About Barbara | F.A.Q. | Bibliography | News