Why does Toby punch Olaf Hollins?
Toby, at the end of “Two Liars,” says he “felt betrayed and alone, as if someone had set fire to my house and I was too far away to do anything but watch it burn” (p. 191). How should we, as readers, interpret this?
“Anything That Floats”
What is the significance of the title? How might it apply to Colleen’s life?
Colleen says, “I’ve failed and wounded all of these men who need me” (p. 203). Is this fair? Does it apply to Tyler too?
Is “Anything That Floats” a love story? Does it have a happy ending?
“Birds of Paradise”
Curtis, the narrator of “Birds of Paradise,” says that none of what happened on the afternoon of the story is “beyond forgiveness” (p. 205). What is there to forgive? Is it all truly forgivable?
Is Phillip Bundick deserving of our sympathies? Is Luis Ortega deserving of our sympathies? Which man is a better match for Fancy?
What is the nature of the relationship between Curtis and Fancy? How do you think it might end?
“Buy for Me the Rain”
Are Lee and Moira in “Buy for Me the Rain” in love with each other? Is there any possibility they might have a future together?
Lee says that he would hurt someone who didn’t deserve it if Moira or his mother asked him to. Is he capable of this? Why does Moira ask him?
Lee imagines his mother as a child. Do we have any sense of who Minnie might have been as a child or a young woman? As a wife? How has her husband’s death changed her?
General Discussion
What role does the setting of Corpus Christi and its environs play in these stories? Is there something distinctly Southern or distinctly Texan in these stories? Also, the characters and residents of Corpus Christi always refer to the city simply as “Corpus,” so what might the significance of the book’s title be? After reading the book, do you think of the city as “Corpus” or “Corpus Christi”? How might your anticipated reaction have factored into the author’s decision about the title?
Class and economic security—the loss of wealth, the fear of poverty—play a large role in most of the stories in Corpus Christi . What is the author trying to tell us about the role of money in contemporary society?
Many of the characters in Corpus Christi offer up wisdom on the keys to living a happy life. What are some of the suggestions? Would any of the characters in the other stories have benefited from these suggestions?
JACOB M. APPEL’s short fiction has appeared in AGNI, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. He currently teaches at Brown University in Providence and at Gotham Writers’ Workshop in New York City.
BRET ANTHONY JOHNSTON’s fiction has been featured in The Paris Review and Open City, as well as many anthologies, including New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2003, 2004, and 2005; Prize Stories: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2002; and Scribner’s Best of the Fiction Workshops 1999. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received a teaching-writing fellowship, he teaches creative writing at California State University, San Bernardino, and can be reached online at www.bretanthonyjohnston.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
are the products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2005 Random House Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 2004 by Bret Anthony Johnston
Reading group guide copyright © 2005 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks
of Random House, Inc.
These stories originally appeared in the following publications:
“Waterwalkers”: Open City, January 2004, and Stories from the Blue Moon
Café III, August 2004; “I See Something You Don’t See”: Crazyhorse, Spring
2003 (published as “How Much Brighter the Stars”); “In the Tall Grass”:
Shenandoah, Fall 2000; “Outside the Toy Store”: Faultline, Spring 2001;
“Corpus Christi”: New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2003, July 2003,
and Black Warrior Review, Fall 2002 (published as “Corpus”); “The Widow”:
New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2004, July 2004, and New England
Review, Spring 2003; “Two Liars”: Scribner’s Best of the Fiction Workshops
1999, April 1999, and Clackamas Literary Review, Fall 1998 (published as
“Smoke”); “Anything That Floats”: The Paris Review, Winter 2004; “Birds of
Paradise”: Southwest Review, Winter 2001; “Buy for Me the Rain”:
The Greensboro Review, Fall 2002 (published as “Condolences”).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnston, Bret Anthony.
Corpus Christi : stories / Bret Anthony Johnston.
p. cm.
1. Corpus Christi (Tex.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3610.O384C67 2004
813’.54—dc22 2003069315
www.atrandom.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-43085-4
v3.0
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