1. Early in the book, Avery expresses guilt about his privileged background. Do you think the other boys are uncomfortable or do they take their social status for granted?

2. What do you think was Vince’s motivation for conducting the first seances? Why do you think he had Jack approach Spencer and Avery with the idea, rather than doing it himself?

3. What does it tell you about Avery’s character that he vomited at Assembly because miracles make him “queasy” or that he finds seances “unnatural”?

4. This passage is from page 9 of the book about the storm after the first seance. [READ] Was that just an unusually strong storm? What else could it symbolize? [Nature is out of kilter, a presage of earth-shattering events to come] [It's similar to harbingers in other literature such as Julius Caesar Act 2, Scene 2, where there is talk of conspiracy before Caesar's assassination:

“A lioness hath whelped in the streets,

And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead;

Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds 

In ranks and squadrons and right form of war, 

Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol; 

The noise of battle hurtled in the air.”]

5. When the puppy Vince cares for is killed by a car, Vince complains, “There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to the universe.” Do you think he believes that, and if so, why does Vince have big plans to feed the world?

6. What do you think caused the tangible changes in the seances -- the stopped clock and watches, the candle extinguished without a breeze, the scent of roses and lilacs? [If not supernatural, were they caused by a common delusion or produced by Vince’s intense desire to have a seance?]

7. What does it tell you about Spencer's relationship with Jack when Spencer is reluctant to rat out his friend Parker and Jack says, “Spencer, you have friends and the then you are friendly with people who may be useful to you. Parker is in the latter category?”

8. What is the significance of Avery’s sparrow? Is he implying that suicide is contrary to the natural order? Are Vince and Maria star-crossed lovers like Romeo and Juliet? All four commit suicide.

9. “Beyond the pale” has several meanings in the book. The Russian pale separated the Jewish people from the rest of the population. The Irish pale kept the Irish out of the English sphere of control. Are there other examples of realms with boundaries or of alienation in the novel? [The shantytown, the real versus the occult world, the administration versus students, Germans versus Jewish Germans]

10. Is Avery right to resist the seances because he's unnerved? Why does he keep agreeing to participate in them?

11. This passage is from page 154 in the book about the anticipation of the 4th séance. [READ] Spencer seems to be struggling with things he senses that may be imaginary like certain smells, sounds and his torpor. Why? [It's similar to other struggles in literature such as Macbeth Act 2, Scene 1, in part of the “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” speech:

“There's no such thing:

It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one halfworld 

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtain’d sleep; witchcraft celebrates

Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered murder,

Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,

With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design

Moves like a ghost.”]

12. When Vince shows signs of mental instability should the boys have told the administration? Why or why not?

13. Why doesn't Spencer listen to Sophie and give up the seances?

14. Should Sophie's father have revealed what he knew about the shantytown? Why or why not?

15. Should Sophie have forgiven Spencer when he asked her a second time to take him back?

16. Spencer calls Sophie an “altruist,” someone unselfishly concerned for others without expectation of personal gain. Is Sophie only an altruist or does she have other motivations? [A political goal to stop Nazism? Pursuit of tikkun olam --  a desire to repair the world to make it better, more just and more equitable?]

17, What are the central themes of the novel? [Alienation, appearance versus reality, fear of the unknown, the fragility of friendships, the thin line between reason and madness, fate versus free will]

18. Does it matter if there is a world, a universe, or an existence beyond what we can perceive? Why? If so, what do you think we can gain by knowing more about it?