About this guide

The questions, discussion topics, and suggestions for further reading that follow are designed to enhance your group's reading of Sue Miller's The World Below, a moving, often surprising exploration of the things people keep hidden from those closest to them. At its heart are two women: Catherine, a twice-divorced mother of three grown children who faces new possibilities and choices as she enters her fifties, and Georgia, Catherine's grandmother, the devoted wife of a country doctor who raised Catherine and her brother after the suicide of their mentally ill mother.

Miles Roby was once known around town as a young man smart enough to escape Empire Falls. A devoted son, he put his dream on hold when his mother's final illness interrupted his last year of college. Twenty years later, Miles is the proprietor of Mrs. Whiting's just barely profitable Empire Grill, the soon-to-be ex-husband of Janine (who has left him for the slick owner of the flashy new health club) and the proud father of Tick, a bright, loving teenager. Seduced by Mrs. Whiting's promise to bequeath him the grill, Miles stoically submits to her arbitrary, often humiliating demands--until the accidental discovery of a family secret shocks him into a troubling reevaluation of his life and the small town that shaped it. Nothing, however, prepares him for the horrific act that ultimately sets him free.

As he exposes the betrayals and self-deceptions, false hopes and genuine desires that motivate his quirky cast of characters, Richard Russo transforms the story of one town into an unforgettable exploration of the human condition. By turns funny, poignant, satiric and shocking, Empire Falls captures us at our best and at our worst.

For discussion

1. THE WORLD BELOW alternates between Catherine's voice and a third-person narrator. How does this approach help to define the two heroines and the times in which they live? How does it relate to Catherine's description of the way Georgia told her grandchildren about her life--"It was a little like the narrative voice of the Brothers Grimm or some of Rudyard Kipling's children's tales" [p. 13]?

2. How does the story of Fanny's illness and death establish the themes Miller explores throughout the novel? In describing the family's reaction to Fanny's illness, Miller writes " . . . they'd all gotten skilled by this time at never acknowledging what they knew, at pretending they didn't see what they saw" [p.9]. Is this a common reaction to illness? How is it related to the sense of shame that, as Miller points out, often surrounds illness in our society? What other factors contribute to the family's willful self-deception?

3. Why does Catherine think that returning to her grandparents' house will help her resolve her feelings about Joe and their divorce [p. 18]? In what ways is her situation as a divorced woman parallel to her situation as an adolescent, when she came to live with her grandparents? Why does she begin her sojourn in the East by spending the night with an ex-lover [p. 21]?

4. Catherine sums up her approach to life by saying "My theory is that everybody always wants to know, even when they don't have an inkling of what they want to know about" [p. 35]. Do Catherine's descriptions of the adjustments she made to her mother's illness and, subsequently, to her grandparents' household, support or belie the validity of her theory? What insights does it offer into Catherine's feelings about the disintegration of her marriages? How does it jibe with her later declaration [p. 122] that, unlike her grandmother, she would never leave written evidence of her thoughts and emotions?

5. Georgia describes the sanatorium as "a place that existed outside of time" [p. 45]. What aspects of the patients' behavior strengthen this impression? What does the sanatorium provide that was missing from Georgia's life at home? Despite the rigid rules and daily routines, why does the atmosphere feel freer than the outside world? What specific rules of "ordinary" life are ignored or suspended at Bryce?

6. Why is Georgia attracted to Seward? To what extent are the qualities Georgia finds appealing attributable to his illness--and her own? Would she have fallen in love with him under other circumstances?

7. Compare Georgia's interactions with Dr. Holbrooke during their initial consultation [p. 55] and his visit to the sanatorium [p. 100-102]. How does Miller convey the changes in their relationship? Why does he become cold and formal when Georgia refers to him as her fairy godfather? Why does his reaction evoke both shame and anger in Georgia? How does the visit foreshadow a pattern that recurs throughout their lives together?

8. What are the lasting effects of Georgia's experiences in the sanatorium? How do they set her apart from her sister, Ada, and the other women in her community? Why does she consciously try to hide or suppress these differences? How does the society she lives in influence the choices she makes? Why does she begin to think of Seward as "someone she'd invented, a beautiful boy in a fairy tale" [p. 165]? What does her marriage to John represent in this context?

9. In what ways does Catherine's life with her grandparents resemble Georgia's time in the sanatorium? To what extent are both sanctuaries from the "real" world? At what point does Catherine herself recognize the similarities?

10. For the most part, we see John from either Catherine's or Georgia's point of view. What passages express John's private thoughts and feelings directly and what effect do they have on your impression of him?

11. Why do you think Miller introduced Samuel, an older man, as Catherine's potential lover? In what ways does their relationship shed light on Catherine's marriages to Peter and Joe? What effect, if any, do you think age difference has on a marriage? How do the marriages in the novel support your position?

12. What is the significance of Samuel and Catherine's discussion about the "central invisible fact" of people's life [p. 137]? What "invisible fact" underlies the lives of Georgia, of John, and of Catherine herself?