1. In writing about four of her relationships, what does the narrator reveal about herself?

2. The narrator is looking back from the standpoint of a much older woman. How does this distance affect the story she relates?

3. What do you think her takeaway, if anything, is from those past experiences?

4. The Details references a book on page one, and features literature as a narrative device throughout the novel. What role does Genberg intend it to play, and is she successful in this deployment?

5. The title is taken from two similar passages late in the novel. Discuss what ithe following passage means, and how it relates to the story. “I used to think that a sharper sense of being alive was to be found in the forest, that I would be able to walk my way to it through the pines, that I would find it while sitting alone on a tree stump with the sun in my eyes, or while gazing out on the sea from some rocks on the shore; that I could only be fully awake among the silent elements. But it turned out that I already had everything right here, in the details around me, that it’s simply a question of being attentive in looking at all of it, of letting myself go and directing my attention outward, and I mean truly outward. That’s where this sharper sense of being alive is found, in the alert gaze on another.”

6. The last chapter is about her mother, whom she calls by her first name, Birgitte. As the chapter progresses, we see more and more of her father. Do we learn anything about them that give us insight into their daughter, the narrator?

7. Alejandro is the only male among the four characters. Does the narrator’s experience with him differ significantly from that of the two female love interests?

8. Genberg writes that the self is made of “traces of the people we rub up against.”  In what sense is this true? Do we see evidence of the four characters in the narrator?

9. The narrator revisits her relationships while ill with a high fever. Does her physical state affect the “details” she remembers about her experiences with people who once mattered to her? What about larger life details that aren’t part of her fever dream?

10. The Details lacks a conventional plot, with arguably no beginning, middle or end. With its lack of chronology, what role does time play in the novel?