1 'Long recitations of local history give a sense if having lingered too long in a county library. 'Do you agree with this estimations of Prouix's novel?
2 Would you describe the sub-stories as 'pointless' or does this judgement miss the point?
3 One critic remarks that Prouix's 'cartoonish names sometimes threaten to topple the novel's sense of reality.' What did you think of the author's nomenclature? Why is Bob Dollar so called?
4 Is the novel realistic? Why/why not?
5 Is Bob Dollar's job morally indefensible? Why/why not?
6 Why does Orlando turn up at Woolybucket?
7 Are hog farms simply another environmental horror in a long chain of horrors? Is 'business' (LaVon's term for capitalism) the culprit? discuss
8 Why does the author portray her main idealist, Brother Mesquite, as a member of a religious order?
9 Orlando's risque means of making a fortune strikes us as a comic ploy, but what comparison might Prouix be making between post modern 'occupation' and the traditional ways she clearly values? (pp249-251)
10 The Old Ace in the Hole is on the whole a 'white' novel. What is Prouix's reason for introducing an old Indian hitchhiker in Chapter 27?
11 Annie Prouix usually doesn't offer and upbeat ending. how does this one fit with the panhandle history of hardscrabble lives that forms the substance of this book? What did you think of the way the novelist rounded everything up?
12 'There is such a longing, on the part of the author and reader, for the panhandlers to beat off Global Pork Rind, that there is a danger, not entirely averted, of the story becoming sentimental. What's your opinion?
13 What hope do you think the author has? What hope do you have in the face of ongoing environmental destruction?
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