The Seeker Academy Bookblog

The reading group guide will evolve, and readers are encouraged to submit questions for inclusion. Periodically, I’ll add to or reorganize the questions–or I’ll have Grace do it, as she sometimes likes to do sorting.

1. The central character, Grace Hudson, is shown realistically as a mother, wife, aunt, teacher, friend. Yet she is also a symbolic figure. How do we know this, and what does she symbolize?
2. How does the author try to lead readers to identify with Grace? How important is this indentification to The Seeker Academy’s impact?
3. Grace brings a burden of sadness to the academy. What is she looking for? Does she find it? What else does she find?
4. Why do you think people attend the kinds of classes and retreats known variously as holistic, mind-body-spirit, new age? What do they seek? Are their questions identifiably political, or social, or psychological, or physical, or spiritual? Or are they hard to classify? Do the teachings they find truely help them?
5. At an important turn in the story, Grace tries body work. Does it help her? How? If you’ve had similar body work experiences, did you find yourself open to them, and how did they effect you?
6. Is Grace a consistent character even as the nature of her journey changes? Which of her concerns carry over from her life at home to the Academy? Does Seeker distract her, or deepen her sight?
7. The Seeker Academy unfolds, in a mostly linear fashion, through Grace’s eyes. The linearity, single point of view, and evocative chapter titles all break with postmodern relativism. Why is the story told this way?
8. Why does the author use literary realism, when holistic centers prefer spiritual fiction and fantasy? Why do they prefer these genres? Do certain story elements require realism? And in what sense is The Seeker Academy also a fable?
9. Grace sometimes worries that, with so much going on and the time short, she’s hardly getting to know her new friends. Do you come to know them sufficiently? Does Grace, despite what she feels?
10. Monk, in late middle age, sees himself living in a piecemeal way within a liberal counterculture. How would he characterize the mainstream society he stands against? How his counterculture? Does his worldview have meaning or authenticity for you?
11. Anton, a dentist who uses holistic techniques in his practice, tell Grace that awareness and purity are the guiding if at times contending spiritual themes explored at Seeker. Grace on her own decides that another guiding theme is fear. Do you often grapple with spiritual awareness, purity or fear in everyday life?
12. The Hudson River setting is resonant in the novel, further accented by other details of place being kept vague—with local markers unnamed or having invented names. Is this a local story? Why does place matter?
13. The novel’s philosophical journey is explored through conversations, performances, and meditations. Why did the author ground these ideas in the characters and plot points of a story, instead of writing a nonfiction book on the holistic movement?
14. Two contrasts frame the story: life in the mainstream versus at the Academy, and being middle-aged versus being young. How do these contrasts effect Trumpeter? Moira Kathleen? Grace, herself? How do they resonate with you?
15. The story ends in midsummer. What might our characters’ lives be like in another half year, and what of their Seeker experiences might they retain? Who would you most like or least like to find yourself sitting beside on a train?