Summer Reading Program

Reader's Guide - Honky by Dalton Conley

Chapter Fifteen: “Symmetry” (pages 161-71)

Content Questions:

1. What has happened to Jerome?
2. What other events in Conley’s life are bringing about changes for him in this chapter?
3. Why is the title of this chapter “Symmetry”?  What does Conley develop as a result of Jerome’s injury? 

Discussion Questions & Journal Ideas:

1. Describe how Conley’s mother treats holidays like the 4th of July.  Does what happened to Jerome bear out her attitude and actions? Why or why not?  How do you see this affecting Conley and his sister’s attitudes towards such iconic American holidays?
2. How does Conley describe Jerome’s hospital room?  Contrast that atmosphere with the events that unfold in Jerome’s room. 
3. Compare and contrast Jerome’s reaction to this event, as Conley describes it, and his own. 
4. Speculate on why Conley’s innocent question causes such a negative reaction in the hospital room.
5. Explain how Conley’s residual need for “symmetry” is a “very real remnant of the violence that beset our neighborhood in the early 1980s” (171).

 

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