1. “Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the stages of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described” What, if anything, did reading this novel evoke in you?

2. What role does Eureka the parrot played in the narrator’s experience throughout the novel?

3. The narrator doesn’t have very high expectations of Vetch when he first moves back in. How does he surprise her?

4. What other ways do we see human behavior meeting, exceeding or falling short of expectations throughout the story?

5. How does that term “the vulnerables” reflect different characters (people animals, even the concept of the novel itself)?

6.  Nunez’s style captures cyclical rumination through philosophical musings, calling attention to the thought processes of writing. How did that affect your reading experience?

7. What role does the pandemic play in the novel? Do you think the story could have been told without it?

8. Can you think of other books that have involved a plague?

9. An early section involves a conversation between adult women friends whos names are all flowers: Rose, Violet, Jasmine, Lily, and Camellia. What do you make of that?

10. What do you make of The Interlude, an intermission that breaks the literary fourth wall?

11. There are several references to hope in this novel: the Pandora myth, Nietzsche’s quote about hope being a great evil, Flannery O’Connor’s quote, “People without hope don’t write novels. I am writing a novel. Therefore, I must have hope.” Does this novel feel hopeful?