Fiction

• Book Club Questions:
  1. Bill and his two friends are all indulging in fantasies of traditional masculinity (explorer, builder, inventor, cop, cowboy). Why? What personal reasons do they have for their fantasy obsessions? To what historical forces and social trends are they responding?
  2. With his constant references to history, philosophy, literature, soccer, and pop culture, Bill is a bit of a “fact collector.” Why is that so many men hoard and obsess over facts the way Bill does?
  3. Bill, Dave and Mark are all stay-at-home fathers, but none of them identifies as such and none of them chose to be stay-at-home fathers. How does this fit with your experience of stay-at-home fathers? Do men who opt for a role in the home do so out of a desire to be nurturing and progressive or as a response to job loss?
  4. Since the recession struck in 2008, manufacturing and construction industries have taken a disproportionate share of job losses. How do you think men affected by those losses are coping? Do you think many of them are responding with the fantasies of avoidance practised by Bill, Dave and Mark, or is that the sort of luxury that only a fortunate few can afford?
  5. How would you describe Bill’s politics? Is he a reactionary, longing for the time when men were men and women were women? How about his thoughts on anthropology, imperialism, and crime? Is Bill a racist?
  6. Let’s talk about class for a moment. Is Bill sympathetic to the poor or afraid of them? What’s behind his obsession with “Barking’s Boy Dad” and the girls from Magdalene Alternative High School? What role does Cody Farrand play in the novel?
  7. New York Times journalist David Brooks coined the term “Bo-Bo” a few years ago to describe people who strive to be both Bohemian and bourgeois at the same time. What evidence suggests that Bill is a Bo-Bo?
  8. Contrast Bill’s youthful obsession with 1980s British post-punk and pop music with his grudging acceptance of contemporary Red State country music. What made him an anglophile in his teens and twenties? What is drawing him to cheesy contemporary country today?
  9. Despite Bill’s anxieties, he and Julie seem to have a loving marriage. What does Julie see in Bill? Or would you say is this a marriage that is held together only by parental duty?
  10. How do you think Julie is likely to react when she learns about Bill’s suspicions at the end of the novel? Do you think they will be able to work through this?
  11. Consider Bill’s thoughts in chapter 2 about what life would be like with a job at Force Financial. Would that be a dream or a sentence for him? At the end of the postscript, what do you think the prognosis is for him professionally?
  12. How does Sean feel toward his father? After the novel ends, how do you see Sean’s relationship with Bill going? Is Sean likely to follow his father into a dysfunctional adult life?
  13. When Bill is imagining himself being interviewed on CBC, is he fantasizing about being a great anthropologist or about being famous? And if the answer is “the latter” what does that say about both Bill and our culture?
  14. In Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity, the music-aficionado protagonist makes the observation that to the music obsessive “What really matters is what you like, not what you are like.” To what extent does this describe Bill’s worldview?
  15. Phillip Larkin’s most famous poem begins: “They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad.” Is this true in Dadolescence? If so, how?
  16. Dadolescence is filled with idealists who have made peace with reality. How do you think Julie feels about her decision to forego being a crusading lawyer in order to work as an HR consultant? Does she enjoy her work? Blake implies that youthful ideals of heroism are something we need to abandon in order to have a real life. Is he right?
  17. To borrow the language of the 12-step movement, are the women in Dadolescence enablers? If so, what do they do that enables the men to remain in their fantasy worlds? Should they have kicked their husbands to the curb long ago?
  18. Bill is highly critical of people he considers poseurs (Mark, art-collecting lawyers, Folk Festival hippies). Why? What are his poses? Is he aware of his own poses? Is he, God help us all, Holden Caulfield grown up with a house in the suburbs?
  19. The people whose jobs we know about in Dadolescence -- Julie, Sheila, Gary, Blake -- work in fields like human resources, health care and financial services. To what extent are the anxieties in the novel an illustration of the effects of the transition to a post-modern, service-based economy? 
  20. Does Bill know for sure what’s in the letter from the Faculty of Graduate Studies or does his just have a strong suspicion? Is he ever really able to put that letter out of his mind? What does he do to distract himself from the letter?
  21. Is Bill’s procrastination the result of poor organization skills or a symptom of some deeper problem?
  22. Bill wakes up one day to a headline on the radio about a mental health crisis among Canadian men. We often hear that, though men are more prone to addiction and several times more likely to commit suicide, men are much less likely to seek mental health treatment. Do Bill and his friends need therapy? Do their coping strategies make things worse for themselves? How would Bill react to the suggestion that he’d be better off with a prescription for anti-depressants?
  23. Is it true that all great road-trip music comes from North America? If so, why?

• Book Club Questions:
  1. Comment on the different meanings of the title.
  2. How and why have attitudes regarding war changed over the last century?
  3. Media and media coverage of war have also evolved since the Anglo-Boer War.  How might these developments play a role in our changing attitudes?
  4. Despite all that has changed, the Anglo-Boer War and modern conflicts still have much in common.  For instance, what parallels can be drawn between Canada’s current role in Afghanistan?
  5. A key conflict in the novel revolves around a disgraceful incident Will witnesses between Canadian troops and an African boy.  This occurrence is loosely based upon an event that transpired while Canadian soldiers were serving in Somalia during the 1990s.  How is it that amidst the atrocities of war, we can still be outraged by certain forms of violence while accepting others as necessary?  Have these lines shifted in the last one hundred years?
  6. While war is often waged in the name of righteousness and justice – or human rights today – these philosophical concepts are, more often than not, thinly veiled dressing for slightly more base economic imperatives.  During the Anglo-Boer War, it was access to diamonds and other resources in South Africa.  What modern conflicts fit this description?  Why do we feel the need to “dress up” these economic pursuits?
  7. When referring to Africa, Campbell says, “There are European footprints all over this continent.  But the wind erases them eventually.”  What does this mean?  Is it true?  Where else do we see this in history?
  8.  All the characters in the novel find themselves at the mercy of history.  Some attempt to carve out their own destinies within the confines of history, some ignore history, and some throw their hands up in defeat.  Comment specifically on Will, Robert, Claire, Mason and Campbell.  What about minor characters such as Siphokazi or Hilde?
  9. Discuss the development of Will’s relationship with Claire.  How is their “love” believable?
  10.  What, if anything, does Will learn on this journey?  How is he different in the end?

• Mennonite Literature
• Short Fiction

• Short Fiction