Reading Group Guide
1. On the morning that Sam acknowledges that she will be get-ting a divorce, she begins to act like "the new me" (5). Of course, the divorce will change Sam, but how does this "new me" of the first morning differ from the woman she will eventually become?
2. On this first morning, Sam acts as she imagines Martha Stewart would. Later, she wants to talk with Martha Stewart although even Travis assures her that "everybody" hates Martha Stewart
(167). Why? What is Martha Stewart a symbol of? Why is Sam suddenly so interested in her? Is it actually Martha Stewart who calls Sam?
3. Sam has rather definite ideas about what Travis's mother ought to be like. "His mother," she insists, "should know what she's doing" (58). Does Sam know what she's doing? Is she a good mother to Travis?
4. Sam's relationship with her own mother is a difficult one. Her frustration with Veronica's "constant, crazy cheerfulness" (88)
is matched only by Veronica's frustration with Sam's need to
"revel" in "misery" (49). Still, Sam acknowledges that "at the heart of things, I am my mother's daughter" (133). How alike are Sam and Veronica? In what ways are they different?
5. Open House is marked with moments in which Sam's family and friends offer their memories of Sam's past with David. Rita admits that she "never" liked David (35). David insists that he and Sam "just never really connected" (132). Even Sam acknowledges that she doesn't think David "ever loved me" (39),
although she stops herself from saying that she "never loved him" (93). How accurate are these memories-Rita's, David's,
Sam's-of the past? Is hindsight 20/20?
6. In a difficult conversation about their separate lives, Sam wants to warn David. "Doesn't he understand," she wonders, "that if he doesn't stop this, it will be too late?" (130). In this very moment,
however, Sam mourns that it "is too late" (130). When does Sam realize that it is "too late" for her to save her marriage?
When did you realize this?
7. During a particularly lonely evening, Sam enters Lydia's room in an attempt to "wrap" herself "in the comfort of someone else's life" (82). Is this possible? How does it happen?
8. Although Sam longs for a "real open house" (196), her mother,
her son, and her best friend are wary of her decision to "open
[her] house to strangers" (49). Why is the novel titled Open
House? Who are the "strangers" in Sam's home?
9. Although Sam reads through the personal ads with both Lydia and Rita, she seems rather skeptical of their promises. Are personal ads inevitably dishonest? What would an honest personal ad sound like?
10. As Sam listens to her mother describe the moment in which,
ironing a shirt, she realized just how much she loved Sam's father,
Sam acknowledges that she appreciates such "evidence of love." What is this "evidence of love"? Is it absent between
Sam and David? What "evidence of love" exists between Sam and King?
11. Sam insists that her decision to get divorced is marked both by moments that are "awful" and moments that are "ecstatic" (53).
Which moments predominate? Do you feel that Sam made the right decision?
12. After taking Sam to the employment agency, King thanks Sam.
It is a gesture Sam doesn't understand. What is King thanking her for? Why doesn't Sam understand?
13. King explains to Sam that, following a disastrous relationship in college, he turned away from individuals to science. "Every-thing is there, in science" (201). However, Sam insists on the strength and superiority of "human connection" (197). In what ways does King find "science" all-fulfilling? What does Sam seek through "human connection"?
14. At one moment in the novel, Sam contemplates the reality that "you live your life, and you get to ask for things, and some-times they are given to you" (167). What does Sam ask for?
What is she given?
15. Throughout Open House, Sam experiences moments of wishing she "believed" and that she "could pray" (198). Sam whispers
"Help me" into "folded hands" (42) and offers a "type of prayer"
over her solitary Thanksgiving dinner (140). In the last sentences of the novel, she feels "full of faith, blessed by it" (241).
What does Sam have faith in?