Questions for Beach Music

1.) Did you like it? Yes, no, or neutral and (briefly) why?

2.) Who was your favorite character and why? Your least favorite?

3.) Jack both reveres and reviles the institution of family. On the one hand, it is understandable that after the pain of the custody trial, he would want to remove both himself and Leah from the association of his in-laws. But what of his own family? What evidence is there to explain his refusal to maintain contact with them when they acquitted themselves so well in coming to his defense?

4.) Who does Jack blame for Shyla's death? Whose failing do you see as being greater and/or who do you hold most accountable: the individual, the close family and friends, or society at large? Further, Jack feels personally that had he known of Shyla's obsession, he could have helped her more. Is this just a typical survivor's reaction, or do you find some merit in this?

5.) Jack blames Shyla's parents for her sadness and his own parents for many of their children's problems. Dallas asks: "Can you ever forgive Mom and Dad for being exactly who they were born to be?” Is the wish to have one's parents be something different a futile desire? How do you assess Jack's own talents when it comes to child rearing?

6.) John Hardin's brothers, in their quest to deal with his emotional problems, make free use of their characteristic sarcasm, caustic wit, and irony. What effect, if any, do you believe this treatment has on John Hardin? In what other ways might you imagine them treating him differently, and what effects do you imagine such changes would make? Are family members' behavior more a cause or an effect of mental illness?

7.) There were a lot of topics addressed in the book... the old South, Vietnam War, the Holocaust, mental illness, cancer, etc. Was it too much for one novel? Did all the different issues make the story more realistic or less realistic for you?

8.) In the first portion of the story, Jack seems tired, bored--even annoyed--with Ruth's and George's repeated references to the Holocaust. What value does the telling of these unspeakable tales hold for Jack, and further, what value do they hold for the modern reader?

9.) Conroy’s plot winds and weaves, backward, now forward again, repeating on itself, and taking on the texture of waves. What effect does this technique contribute to the tale? Is there something that would be lost had Conroy adopted a more linear approach in the telling?
10.) To what extent do you believe that Jack's views are Conroy's views? At what points, if any, do you feel that they diverge? Finally, can you find instances where Conroy steps back and is actually critical of Jack?

11.) Virtually all of the characters here are affected in some way by the concept of masks--both metaphorical and literal--and the converse issue of nakedness. At one extreme, we have Lucy calling for her makeup first thing after waking from a near-death coma. At the other end of the spectrum, we have John Hardin talking to the turtle ladies on the beach while stark naked. Is the relative ability to don masks or abide one's own nakedness an asset or a hindrance to these characters? How is the mask/nakedness issue related to both the physical and emotional survival of other characters, particularly the Foxes?

12.) Jack speaks of his own sense of helplessness as a child when witnessing violent acts. Yet, in a sense, he subjects Leah to the same emotions when he beats up Mimmo DeAngelo, even if it is in defense of Mimmo's wife, Sophia. Is Conroy perhaps showing us here, with brutal honesty, that it is impossible to escape our own genetic/environmental past? Do you believe that it is possible to break out of our familial molds, or is each generation doomed to re-create in some fashion the wrongs of its predecessor?

13.) It can be said that "place" almost functions as another character in this book. What do you make of Jack's choice of Italy as a refuge for himself and Leah?

14.) It is interesting that Capers--arguably one of the least sympathetic characters in the novel--is often granted the discerning vision of the realist. "`Yours, Jack, is a world of either-or, all or nothing'" (153). With one sentence, he nails the fact that the very same fault that Jack finds with Catholicism, Judaism, and zealous patriotism--the extremity of it all--is one that he is guilty of himself. Is it just human nature, or is it a tragic flaw peculiar to Jack, this inability to see the thing we hate in ourselves, and so turn it outward on humanity?