Some of the big historic events that happen in the background of the narrative include the Tulsa massacre of 1921, the crack epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s, and the attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001. What do you think the novel is saying about the relationship between race, class, and education?ħ. How do those differences affect their relationship as teenagers? As adults? How do other characters in the novel grapple with their class? Consider the upbringings of CathyMarie, Aubrey, Sabe, Melody, and Iris. Consider the different ways in which Aubrey and Iris’s class differences manifest within their relationship. When Aubrey first brings Iris to his house, he feels a kind of shame about his mother and his way of life that he never experienced before. How would you describe their relationship? Do you think their relationship has progressed, regressed, or otherwise changed by the conclusion of the novel? In what ways are Iris and Melody similar and in what ways are they different?Ħ.

The theme of mothers and daughters is one that plays throughout the book, and we begin and end the novel with Iris and Melody.

In your own experience, how strong or important is the connection between people and place? Do you think people and their lives are shaped by their relationships with the places they are from and their feelings about home? Do you see this illustrated in the story, in any particular characters or storylines? What do you think of Iris’s decision to stay away from her family? Can you empathize with her?ĥ. The story begins and ends in Brooklyn, but incorporates the stories of how both Iris and Aubrey’s families came to live there, and also watches Iris experiment with living elsewhere. The author dedicates the book to “the ancestors, a long long line of you bending and twisting.” How does the story explore the idea of legacy? How does it look at the passing down of regret and loss and trauma and history, and also of love and guidance and wisdom and experience? Discuss your own legacies: What have you inherited in this way from your ancestors, and what will be passed on to future generations? How do these legacies compare to the legacies in Red at the Bone?Ĥ. Why do you think the author chose it? What does the phrase mean to you?ģ.

Consider the title and how it works with the story. How do you think the lives of the characters-from each family-might have been different if Melody had never been conceived? Which characters gained or lost the most, ultimately, as a result of this unplanned child? Consider all the many ways in which their fortunes were altered.Ģ. In Red at the Bone, two families from different social classes are brought together by an unexpected pregnancy.

Woodson red at the bone