Birmingham, 35 Miles

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

It’s the year 2044, and much of the scorched earth has turned to desert. The American South is a dust bowl, populated by citizens who eke out a hardscrabble life as clay miners or traders in the macabre enterprises that arise in the aftermath of catastrophe. Trapped in this region by a government order against “desertion,” Mathew Harrison drifts between two worlds—the gentle memories of his father’s farming legacy and the reality of his wife’s hope to escape to the Saved World, where a better life beckons. As he confronts the difficult choice between the only home he has ever known and the tenuous promise of blue sky, clean air, and a future with the woman he loves, Birmingham, 35 Miles becomes a bittersweet elegy to hope.

The questions and discussion topics that follow are intended to enhance your reading of James Braziel’s Birmingham, 35 Miles. We hope they will enrich your experience of this haunting novel.

Reader's Guide

1. Discuss the stark realism woven throughout the futuristic images in Birmingham, 35 Miles. How does James Braziel create a scenario that is easy to envision yet set in the unseen future? Are the meteorological extremes he portrayed likely to occur in your lifetime, or in that of future generations?

2. The chapter title “For Queen and Country” refers to Englishmen fighting in Africa, an aspect of world history that intrigues Mat. What does this chapter indicate about the role of history teachers in shaping our understanding of the present? How did his father’s view of history and patriotism shift?

3. How was your reading affected by the author’s use of flashbacks and a fluctuating timeline? How did these elements reflect the way we remember significant events, and the way memory can gain momentum?

4. Discuss the letters, many of them censored, that form an essential aspect of the storyline. What do they tell us about Jennifer and her mother? How does their relationship compare to Mat’s connection to his father?

5. What makes Alabama, with its Old South legacy, a useful setting for this novel? What cultural aspects of the south (particularly versus Chicago) affected Matt’s perception of events? What is significant about the author’s choice of Birmingham for the destination designated in the title?

6. How is Mat affected by the mysteries and truths surrounding his mother’s death? How did the knowledge of it compare to the knowledge of his father’s final moments? Ultimately, what did his father most want to give Mat? What did his father and his uncle believe the keys to survival were?

7. How did your image of Jennifer change throughout the novel as Mat’s memories of her unfolded? How was their wedding portrayed? What did it mean to find love in the midst of lifeless terrain?

8. Would you have trusted Bossey? What did “work” come to mean in the world of Birmingham, 35 Miles? In what way did propaganda and information control influence how Mat’s community perceived the very concept of trust, even when they were receiving health warnings?

9. How did you react to Mat’s dreams—both daydreams (such as that of his mother and the blue diamonds) and those he experienced while sleeping? In some cases, were they more realistic than his surreal life?

10. Discuss the music that forms a sort of soundtrack throughout the novel. How did the often optimistic, romantic lyrics sustain Mat? What do these songs, and the dancing he describes so frequently, mean to Mat’s sense of self?

11. How was your reading shaped by the fact that Mat’s story is told in the first person? How might it have unfolded if it had been narrated from another character’s point of view, such as Jennifer’s or Ray’s?

12. Why does Mat hesitate to leave? Have your ties to the past ever influenced your ability to make a crucial decision?

13. Chapter 13, “Dothan, 2024,” describes the consequences for those who tried to escape. Was it necessary for the government to segregate Mat’s community from the rest of America? What present-day analogies exist in the scenario of laws that create borders between populations?

14. What do you predict for the future of Mat’s family, in light of Jennifer’s revelations in the closing lines?

15. How does the world of Birmingham, 35 Miles compare to other fictional dystopias you have read about (the censored realm of Fahrenheit 451, for example)? In what way does Braziel’s approach speak to a new era?