1. How do Esther and Jacob respond to Deborah's illness? What does the novel's opening scene indicate about their different parenting approaches? 2. Discuss the nature of Deborah's imaginary world. What are the characteristics of Yr? What do the Collect and the Censor want? What rules does Deborah set for herself based on what they tell her? 3. In her afterword, the author writes, "Many psychiatrists with backgrounds in chemical therapies felt that schizophrenia--which had been my diagnosis--is incurable. Statistically, of course, more than one-third of us do recover." What was your initial reaction to Deborah's case file, appearing in chapter two? How optimistic were you about her prognosis? 4. What illusions do the novel's "healthy" characters create for themselves? To what degree do Dr.

Fried and Deborah's parents create their own imperfect realities? 5. Deborah experienced the pain of anti-Semitism throughout her childhood, and the shadow of Hitler is described in many of the novel's passages, including in chapter twelve. To what extent did this history contribute to her illness? 6. Why are Deborah and Carla drawn to each other? How are their views of the world alike and different? Do they trust each other? 7. In chapter six, "upuru" is defined as "Yr's word for the whole memory and emotion of that last hospital day," referring to the surgery Deborah experienced as a little girl. What could have been done to make the surgery less traumatic? How did it influence her perception of healers, and the promise of healing? 8. How does Deborah think of her body? In her mind, why is it necessary to hurt herself physically? What does suicide mean to her? 9. Discuss the culture of Deborah's mental hospital.

How do the patients form alliances? How much power do they have? How much power do they think they have? Do its wards, hierarchies, rules, and rule breakers remind you of any other institutions (in politics, in corporate America, or elsewhere)? 10. What does Miss Coral's instruction signify to Deborah? What is their understanding of the purpose of language? 11. The author notes in the afterword that when her novel was first published in the 1960s, "madness" was sometimes seen as a liberating, creative force. How did her work challenge this belief? How might Deborah have fared in the twenty-first century? 12. In chapter twenty-eight, Deborah tries to imagine her employment qualifications. What does this passage say about her state of mind at this point in her life? How has her self-perception changed since the beginning of the novel?.