Reader's Guide

Sea Room

Reading Guide

"After breakfast, Pip and Jordi set out for a small, nameless cove they had dubbed Mussel Cove. ... Their footfalls were soft on the beds of pine needles. Sea air, cool and salty, mixed with the scent of balsam fir. Jordi heard the slosh of the waves before him and soon they descended to the rock-strewn beach of Mussel Cove."
- Chapter 6

Sea Room
by Norman G. Gautreau

Book Discussion Group
Reader’s Guide

A book is a dance between author and reader, a collaboration. The experience is not complete until both partners have been involved. And the product of that collaboration is unique for each reader, giving rise to different questions and points-of-view. The main purpose of a book discussion group is to give voice to those different experiences so that participants can learn from each other. In short, the main question is “What was my personal experience of this book and how did it affect me?” Although it may be of some interest, the main question is not, “What was the author’s intent?” because that only looks at one part of the collaboration.

With that in mind, discussion questions should come from each member of the group and the suggestions below are nothing more than that—suggestions.

Synopsis

(From the jacket copy):

Set during and after World War II, Sea Room chronicles three generations of the Dupuy family living on the rugged coast of Maine, harvesting crops from the land and lobsters from the sea. The Dupuys lead lives of honor and warm simplicity…until the war ravages their peaceful existence.

When Gil Dupuy enlists in the Army, his parents, wife, and son Jordi are left to fight on the home front. Gil’s feisty mother, Zabet, grows food and organizes scrap drives to engage the enemies of her son. His young wife Lydie bravely battles loneliness and temptation. And his father, Pip, a World War I veteran, struggles to protect his family from the harshest truths of war. Together, Pip and Jordi keep alive Gil’s dream of building a fine sailboat, their way of salvaging beauty from the chaos and agony of war. The very hardships that draw the family together also strain its bonds; and each of them is somehow forced to define what it means to live with integrity…even when, for one, it means facing a charge of murder.

Told in luminous and vivid prose that captures the rugged coast of Maine—the salt air, the cold embrace of fog, the ebb and flow of the tides, and the turn of the seasons—this is a timeless story about being pushed to the limits of adversity and fighting for the freedom to set your own course…the freedom of sea room.

Characters

        Jordi Dupuy                        Virgil Blount
         Hippolyte "Pip" Dupuy        Ogden Gower
         Elizabeth "Nana" Dupuy       Niall MacGrudder
         Gil Dupuy                            Rufus Metcalfe
         Lydie Dupuy                        Ambrose Locke
         Chrétien Bastarache             Evan Davids

Suggested Questions for Discussion

1. What are the major themes of Sea Room? For what is the phrase “sea room”
a metaphor?

2. What questions are raised by Sea Room that parallel the questions raised
by the attacks of 9/11?

3. It’s clear that Sea Room is, in part, a coming-of-age story about Jordi Dupuy.
However, in what ways, if at all, can it be said to be a “coming-of-age” story
about some of the other characters, especially Pip?

4. Discuss the author’s use of symbolism and imagery. Do they add to the overall
effect of the book or are they distracting?

5. Paraphrasing the composer Gian Carlo Menotti, the author has said that his
writing is informed by the emotions of love, compassion, outrage, and awe.
How are these expressed in the book?

6. How does the setting, the rugged coast of Down-East Maine, suit the themes
of the book? In what ways are the characters and their lives shaped by where
they live and work?

7. What is the role of Teddy Thibodeau? Why is he never introduced in the flesh?
Are there other characters who function in the same way?

8. What does the boat Trobador represent for Pip? For Jordi? For them, does
the meaning of Trobador extend beyond its association with Gil Dupuy?

9. What do you make of the dialogue between Pip and Father Battisti which
     begins on page 221 and ends on page 223? Is Pip playing Devil’s advocate
     or does he mean exactly what he says? How does this dialogue relate to the
     major themes of the book?

10. Why is the whale, Keporkak, so important to Pip that he keeps looking for
it at every opportunity and even at the moment of death?

11. When Rufus Metcalfe suddenly says to Pip and Jordi, “I know what you’re
doing,” to what is he referring? What lesson is he implying that Pip taught him?

12. Why did the author chose to lead each of the three sections with an epigraph
and why those particular epigraphs?

13. What do you make of Lydie’s motivation in taking up with Virgil Blount? What
emotions is she expressing through this behavior?

14. Discuss the differences between Nana and Pip’s views of the world. Is
Nana’s religious faith solid, or is it threatened? What about Pip’s?

15. Discuss Pip’s view of the world in terms of our contemporary notion of
“victim hood.”

Follow this link to Author's Thoughts on Sea Room