Romulus My Father by Raimond Gaita

Questions for discussion


1. This story has a very dramatic plot, featuring love affairs, betrayal, fighting, madness and more than one suicide. If the book was fiction, it might seem like over the top melodrama. Yet it is categorised as biography. Did you find it difficult to believe that it was all true? Why? or why not?

2. While reading this book, I was reminded of similar ‘deprived childhood’ autobiographies A Fortunate Life by AB Facey and Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Did Romulus My Father remind you of any other books you’ve read? Do you enjoy reading this type of true story?

3. The book paints the picture of a very unusual and eccentric man: Romulus Gaita. What did you think of Romulus? Do you think he was a good man? Do you think he was an interesting character? Do you think he was a good father to Raimond?

3. The story opens with a very young Romulus behind the door of his Grandfather’s house, desperate and ready to kill his drunken uncle if his uncle broke the door down. At several points in the story, Romulus seems ready to kill or be killed - for example, when he takes Raimond to Sydney in order to kill Lydia’s husband, and then on the way home considers killing himself instead. Why were things always so life-or-death for Romulus? Did he create and cause all the drama himself? Or was he pushed to extremes by the circumstances?

4. Romulus and Hora were great friends for nearly their whole lives. They met because of shared circumstances, but their friendship was sustained through a shared set of principles which formed the basis for their way of living in Australia as immigrants, their way of caring for their families and their joy in conversing with each other and with Raimond. Did their principles - hard work, honesty, friendship etc - resonate with you? Or did Romulus and Hora seem like strange, inflexible people? Should they have done more to fit in with the Australian way of life in the 1950s and 60s?

5. For Romulus, the principle of truthfulness was all important - not simply that ‘honesty is the best policy’ to keep oneself out of trouble. How important is it to be truthful? Do you ever tell ‘white’ lies?

6. Raimond mentions that as a child he was used to seeing unusual incidents, and that he wasn’t shocked when his mother tried repeatedly to commit suicide, his ‘step-father’ Mitru did, and even his own father attempted it. Do you think that the dramas in this book reflect the broader experience of immigrants in Australia in the at that time? or do you think that it was to do with the situation only within Gaita family?

7. The people of Maryborough seemed to either love Raimond’s mother Christina or despise her. On the one hand, she was beautiful, engaging and charming. On the other hand, she was depressed and troubled mentally, and seemed completely unable to care for her own children. What did you think of Christina?

8. Did you see the movie Romulus, My Father? Was it as good as the book?