Baby Got Book discussion

1. All of the characters in this novel have their failings and as a result they are all fully human. Are you surprised by the secrets Elinor and Michael Mompellion each reveal to Anna about their marriage? How do they change your feelings about each character? Do they make either seem weaker in a way?

2. The Bradford family bears the brunt of Mompellion's rage when they leave town to save themselves. However, weren't they only doing what every other noble family did in those days: run because they had the means to run? Setting aside the events near the end of the novel (which make it clear that one would be hard-pressed to find a redeeming quality in any of them), can you really blame the Bradfords for running?

3. How much of Mompellion's push for the quarantine had to do with the secrets he shared with Elinor? Did his own dark side and self-loathing push him to sacrifice the town or was he really acting out of everyone's best interests?

4. Keeping in mind that this story takes place a good twenty-five years before the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, what is the role of the Gowdie women in the novel? What is it about these women that drives their neighbors to murderous rage? How does their nonconformity lead to their becoming scapegoats?

5. How would you explain Anna's mental and spiritual unraveling? What are the pivotal experiences leading up to her breakdown and her eventual rebirth?

6. Discuss the feminist undertones of the story. How does each female character—Anna, Elinor, the Gowdies, and even Anna's stepmother—exhibit strengths that the male characters do not?

7. In a story where the outcome is already known from the very beginning—most of the villagers will die—discuss the ways in which the author manages to create suspense.

8. Can we relate the story of this town's extraordinary sacrifice to our own time? Is it unrealistic to expect a village facing a similar threat to make the same decision nowadays? What lessons might we learn from the villagers of Eyam?

1. I was surprised to hear the secrets that the Mompellions shared with Anna. I think I have a hard time imagining that people had extramarital affairs way back then and so the secrets were shocking to me. I think Michael's secret of his and Ellen's celibate relationship was more shocking than Ellen's secret, though. Ellen's secret didn't change my opinion of her too much, although I was surprised by it, but I was very angry with Michael after learning his secret--to me it made Michael seem weaker. I thought it was unfair that he seemed willing to take Ellen as his wife despite what he knew about her past, but yet he chose to punish throughout their entire marriage, only for him to commit the same sin before she was cold in the ground.

2. I don't blame the Bradfords for running. If I had been in the same position, and assuming I didn't have a special set of skills (doctor, nurse, etc) to help care for people, I likely would have moved my family away from the illness as well. I couldn't understand why so many people stayed simply because Michael Mompellion told them to.

3. I don't think Michael was really acting out of everyone's best interests when he called for the quarantine, but I am also not sure it was his dark side that pushed for the quarantine. I think Michael might have wanted to prove to himself that he had power over something and used that power to make all the townspeople stay.

4. I think that the Gowdie women were excellent characters in the novel! It is sad that people who knew so much about natural remedies and midwifery were sentenced to such a terrible fate. I think that the women became scapegoats because the town needed to believe that there was some reason the plague chose to riddle their town with sickness and blaming it on "sorcery" and "witchcraft" was easier than just accepting the fate of the town.

5. If I were in Anna's position, losing first her husband, then her boarder, her children, her aunt, her friend Ellen, her father, half-sister, and step-mother, and several other friends and acquaintances and then finding out Michael's secret, it would be hard to not lose some of your faith. Everything Anna had to live for was stripped away from her, and it wasn't until she had something to live for, the Bradford baby that she took as her own, that she could figure out how to be "reborn."

6. The women seemed to try to help those in the town who had fallen ill. The men dug graves, but beyond that, they seemed to stick to themselves despite the needs of others. Although the women knew they could get sick by helping other sick townspeople, they chose to help.

7. The story line involving Ellen's secret, Michael's secret, and the story line involving Anna's father and stepmother were all very suspenseful. The ending was also quite unexpected to me--I didn't anticipate Anna taking someone else's child to raise as her own or her going off to the Middle East to raise said child.

8. I don't think the same outcome could be expected of a town or village nowadays. I think if a similar illness started to spread, everyone who could would try to get away from the village, even if it meant they spread the illness to other areas. I think the women of Eyam were very noble in trying to help other villagers, even when they were sick. I don't think I would be that noble if faced with a similar challenge.

1. I was shocked by both Elinor and Michael's secrets, and while I found Elinor's abortion appalling (a hot iron? Oh my dear Lord I can't imagine the desperation), I found it more appalling that Michael punished her for the entirety of their marriage for it. She had shown repentance and lived a selfless life thereafter, yet he, the preacher, showed mercy and forgiveness to everyone but his own wife. He spoke of "atonement," but I don't think he understood what that really meant.

2. I don't blame the Bradford's for running at all, but I also think they had the means to run. The Bradfords had connections and money, all you really need to start over. The people of the village didn't really have that option. They had little money and there was no telling if their kin would allow them to live with them. The surrounding villages were clear they didn't want them there when they essentially killed the old lady that had to be carted back to the village to die. They just didn't have a good option.

3. He probably wasn't acting out of the best interest of the people in the village, but when you take the whole of England into account I think he was acting for the good of everyone. The people in the village had to die so that the others would live...it was too big of a risk to have the plague travel to other towns and wipe out even more people.

4. I loved the Gowdie women too! They were independent and brave and intelligent...they were modern women born in the wrong era. The only reason they died was because of the fear of the villagers. They feared what they did not understand, and they feared disease, and instead of thinking rationally they allowed their fear to control them and take the lives of these women.

5. I think it's quite clear what Anna's unraveling amounted to: Grief. It is hard enough to lose one person you love without coming completely undone and having your faith dwindle, but to lose everyone that you love seems too much for anyone to bear. It is only by seeing life and having someone new to love, with the promise of a new life, that she begins to be healed.

6. I love the feminist undertones in this book. The Gowdies, Elinor, and Anna all were educated women. They taught themselves and each other when no one else would do so---when the men scoffed at them like it wasn't their place. And because of this determination to learn they were able to help save lives, and bring babies into the world, and create medicines and care for livestock, etc. Had they done what was expected of them and accepted their lot as women, the village would have been even more worse off than it was, but they didn't and I admire them all for it!

7. The author managed to create a lot of suspense throughout the novel---the Gowdies, the conflict with Anna's father and step-mother, the "ghost" trading money for spells, the love affairs. The plague was always present in the story, but there was so much more going on that it always kept me interested.

8. The only thing I can think of that would even compare is the work of missionaries and doctors in leper colonies, particularly in India. The lepers are quarantined, yet someone has to help them, and they do so knowing full well that there is always a possibility of contracting the disease themselves. Of course, we understand the disease better now and have medications to help keep it at bay, but it is still a sacrifice. I suppose the same can be said of journalists, missionaries, and aid workers who go into war-torn countries or disease-ridden countries at great risk to themselves. There are actually brave, selfless people who make these kinds of sacrifices for the greater good. As far as a specific plague scenario, I think if we were to have an outbreak of that proportion that we didn't medically understand, we wouldn't have a choice in the quarantine...the government would require it of us for the sake of everyone else. But the lessons I learned from the villagers of Eyam were this: to never let fear gain a foothold in your life, no matter the circumstances, and to never let fear keep you from helping those in need...to value others above yourself.