Pretend I'm Dead
Page 22
10. After rereading her childhood diaries, Mona speculates (p. 140) that “perhaps she didn’t have daddy issues . . . but rather Tommy issues.” What do you make of this? Do you think Mona is able to reconcile the trauma of her childhood?
11. Pretend I’m Dead is a relatively short novel, yet it deals with difficult topics, such as sexual abuse and addiction. Did the length of the novel make it easier or harder to read about these subjects?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Read Lucia Berlin’s A Manual for Cleaning Women, a book of autobiographical short stories set in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s about Berlin’s experience as a cleaning lady. Compare her real-life experiences to Mona’s fictional ones.
2. Seek out some of the think pieces published in the wake of the #MeToo movement and discuss how Mona’s experiences may fit with some of the questions raised in recent times about sexual abuse and assault.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© BEOWULF SHEEHAN
JEN BEAGIN holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine, and is a recipient of a 2017 Whiting Award in fiction. Pretend I’m Dead is her first novel. A former cleaning lady, she lives in Hudson, New York.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Jen Beagin
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First Scribner hardcover edition May 2018
Previously published in 2015 by TriQuarterly Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-8393-5
ISBN 978-1-5011-8394-2 (ebook)