Book Club Questions - Father Sweet
Thinking of using Father Sweet for your book club? BookTrib says you and your friends will be “totally absorbed and riveted to the pages.” You’ll have plenty of lively discussion.
Here are some Father Sweet questions to spark dialogue and debate, just copy and paste into an email to your club, or print them out.
Book Club Questions
Father Sweet by J.J. Martin
What impact did the story have on you? Did any of your opinions change?
How did the author’s writing style help or hinder the flow of the story?
How effective is the author’s use of plot twists? Were you able to predict things before they happened or were you guessing right to the end?
Why did the parents react the way they did to the circumcision ritual, the bris?
How would the narrator’s parents react if he told them what happened on the camping trip?
Is the bear on the camping trip real?
Blackburn Hamlet is close to a government city yet is a small town, bordering on wilderness. How important is this location to the story?
Discuss the path of Danny Lemieux’s life from schoolboy to priest.
Why do you think the father secretly save boxes of Indian and Northern Affairs records for so many years?
Why is the narrator is so focused on saving Antonio.
The narrator remains nameless until nearly the end of the story. Why did the author make that stylistic choice?
The plot travels through Canada, the USA and Mexico. How is Catholicism and Christianity portrayed by the novel in those jurisdictions?
What is the connection of colonialism to the family, the narrator, and the parish?
Discuss spirituality vs organised religion, using examples from the story.
Discuss the practice of the Canadian government and Christianity in removing children from their families and placing them in residential schools.