Summer Reading Program

Reader's Guide - Honky by Dalton Conley

Chapter Two: “Trajectories” (pages 11-19)

Content Questions:

1. What primary reason does his mother usually give for having moved to the Masaryk Towers complex on the Lower East Side of Manhattan?
2. What does Conley identify as a “security blanket” for himself and his sister growing up, that his neighbors did not have (13)?
3. Describe what Conley’s neighborhood looked like.
4. What was different about Masaryk Towers, compared to the neighboring housing complexes?
5. Conley was born shortly after his parents moved to Masaryk Towers.  What happened to him at three weeks of age?

Discussion Questions & Journal Ideas:

1. What does the word “trajectories” mean, and how does it apply to what happens in this chapter?
2. Conley says that “despite our family’s economic circumstances, we enjoyed a degree of choice about where to live” (11).  Why, and how was the experience of his neighbors different?
3. What do you think of the many reasons Conley gives for why his mother chose to move to the Masaryk Towers complex?  Does his father seem to figure into this decision much?  What does this part of the story reveal about how people choose to live where they live?
4. Conley’s life was obviously saved by his mother’s decision to break into the hospital lab and run an important test herself.  He recounts this event quite briefly, but once again it illustrates the concept of unconscious white privilege.  How?

 

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