Stella and Margie book club notes

Stella and Margie is a beautiful novel about two women – a generation apart – thrown together by circumstance, who slowly come to love and understand one another. Enjoy this piercingly insightful novel with your reading group.
 

Discussion points and questions:
 

• If you were in Margie’s marriage, would you have done anything differently? If so, what and how?
• Do you consider Margie a weak person because she didn’t leave her marriage?
• From the perspective of deceiving another woman, how do you judge Margie for having an affair?
• What is the significance of the birds? What do they represent?
• How do you feel about the phrase, ‘I did my best’, in the context of motherhood, and the judgements we make of our mothers, and ourselves as mothers?
• Do you relate to Stella’s determination for self-expression and independence beyond being a wife and mother?
• What is good about Stella and Ross’s marriage?
• Was Stella right to bring Margie back to Maryhill against Ross’s wishes?
• Do you think Margie might have succumbed to Chester’s charms had she been in a different relationship?
• Is the relationship between daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law with differing personalities always bound to be fraught?