Hearts (37 page)

2. How does Linda and Robin’s cross-country trip contribute to their hostilities and to their rare moments of détente? Is a lengthy car ride the acid test of any friendship?

3. Stepmother and stepdaughter are close in age but markedly different. Sometimes they don’t even seem to speak the same language. But in what crucial ways are they alike? And what aspects of their respective histories connect them?

4. How is the motif of “hearts” woven throughout the novel? What are the key secrets that Linda and Robin keep from each other, and what finally compels them to open their hearts?

5. How do you imagine Linda at the Robin’s age—a teenager—and Robin at twenty-six? Are there times when they seem to trade ages and roles?

6. Hilma Wolitzer uses humor and pathos to tell Robin and Linda’s story, sometimes on the same page, as in their stubborn silence at the Howard Johnson’s in
chapter 23
, and when they spread Wright’s ashes at a rest stop in
chapter 35
. Have you experienced a desire to both laugh and cry on similar occasions in your own life? Does a comic vision help to leaven the pain of tragedy?

7. How important are the minor characters and a tourist’s view of the American landscape to the novel’s progress and the heroines’ emotional destination? Did the references to pop culture help to orient you in time and to place?

8. What role does Wolfie play in Robin and Linda’s relationship?

9. In what ways might
Hearts
be considered a feminist novel?

10. Linda’s dancing is the only thing she can do “without premeditation or fear.” She is physically graceful even when she’s socially awkward. Does Robin have a similar saving grace?

11. Did you feel as though the author had equal affection and regard for Linda and Robin? Did you sympathize
or identify with one more than the other? How does your own status as parent or child affect your attitude toward the characters?

12. Robin has fantasies about her missing mother. What role do these dreams play for Robin? How does Linda help her to cope with her shattered illusions? And how does Linda use fantasy to deal with her own disappointments and losses?

13. Is Robin really “cured” of her longing for her mother by their failed reunion, or is she simply unable now to deny the reality of her abandonment? Does she carry another, unspoken, even unconscious fantasy about forming a new family with Linda? If so, what part does the news of Linda’s pregnancy play? How do you envision the future for Linda and Robin and the baby?