Your Complimentary Story
Pre-reading Questions
If you were the parent of an eight-year-old child, would you try to protect her innocence or teach her about the real world?
How does it make you feel that some kids have to grow up faster than their peers?
POST-reading Questions
Angela feels that “It’s been hard taking the place of an angel.” Why might she feel this way?
What does Angela say when her father asks if she’s cold? Why do you think she says this?
Angela’s father suggests that she could dance if she feels cold. How does Angela initially respond, and why? Why does she think her father wants her to dance?
What does Angela hear the Shamnais saying about her father? Why do you think she chooses not to translate for him? If you were her father, would you want her to translate or not?
Angela’s father says that the place they’ve been banned from is “such a nice park with so many nice-looking invaders.” Why might he call the Shamnais invaders “nice-looking”?
How does Angela’s father respond when a Shamnais gives him directions in his own language? Why might he do this?
Why do you think the author chose to make the Shamnais a different species instead of rich people from Earth? How does this affect your feelings towards Angela and her father’s predicament?
What does a Shamnais boy do to Bonavento, the monkey? What happens to Bonavento after that?
Why do you think Angela wonders how much her father would cry for her if she were taken away?
What does Angela wish she had never come to understand? Why do you think she wishes for this?
Why do you think Angela’s face burns after a Shamnais drops coins in her bucket and gives her “a kind sort of look?”
Angela says that she knows her father “doesn’t want to ask” her to dance, but she realizes he wants her to. Why might her father not want to ask her to dance? What does this tell you about his character?
Why does Angela dance even though she feels embarrassed? What does this tell you about her character?
Why do you think Angela has “to remember to smile” during the final dance with the Shamnais children? What does that tell you about how she feels in this moment?
Why do you think Angela is reminded of Bonavento as she dances with the Shamnais children? Why might she think specifically about saying goodbye to Bonavento in this moment?
Do you think the closing dance scene is happy or sad?
What aspects of the story seem liminal to you? (Consider setting, characters, and action.) Is there a liminal guide, and if so, what is the nature of their interaction with the protagonist?
What people
are saying
“It’s a breed of storytelling that encases an entire cosmos within a compact form with prose that pulses with life, with tableaus that transfix the imagination with glimmers of divine order in an emotionally turbulent landscape.”
— Timothy Cech, fiction editor, Reed Magazine on “The Stretch Motel” from Tales From the Liminal