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1. 'It was a dark and stormy night...' is a famous literary cliche, but the biggest revelation happened on a dark and stormy night. Is it a literary tribute or the macabre side of the novel?

2. The past is often very different from what we usually imagine. The curse is not much the curse as the sisters used to believe and the rare spell of their aunt's lucidity is a certain deux ex machina in this novel. Do you think the unlikelihood of her escape, her lucid spell, and then her mental darkness somehow pave the way for another unlikely development - an incestuous relationship with Danny, who is a cousin but also a brother of sorts for Delph.

3. Does the proximity of death re-write moral and ethical codes?

The appearance of the aunt was not on my list of possibilities but it permitted the author to bring tension into the suicide pact by demonstrating the situational difference between Delph and her sisters. While first cousins may qualify as too closely connected for a legally/medically acceptable marriage with children, I did not see either Danny or Delph thinking that one night of sex put them into an incestuous relationship, even if both had second thoughts about it when they sobered up. I think the cousins could have been great friends. The more interesting connection to me was between Delph and the bar owner.

I don't understand question 3. I'm in favor of assisted suicide for the termnally ill who have made their wishes known - I don't think that terminally ill individuals are rewriting their moral and ethical codes if they choose suicide rather than having to endure a painful end. Only Vee was close to death. Her choice of suicide was her taking control of her life. Lady had been trying to off herself for years, so she certainly was not changing her personal moral/ethical code. Now Delph is the big question - was she in the pact because she did not know how to live without her sisters? Does that make her a coward? Does her choice have anything to do with moral and ethical codes? The sisters were not practicing Jews or connected to any religious community. What is the secular (not legal) moral or ethical code as to suicide?

It is a question about the nearly incestuous relationship, but it might apply to a number of other issues in the novel - senility, terminal illness, etc.

Zulfiya wrote: "It is a question about the nearly incestuous relationship, but it might apply to a number of other issues in the novel - senility, terminal illness, etc."

What is the content of the ethical and moral codes that you are asking whehter the proximity of death may alter? I once took a seminary course on ethics and there is not one universally accepted code. Personally, I tend to be a situational ethicist. I respect the consistency of the ethical codes of the Roman Catholic Church but believe they are probably violated more often than followed. And I think secular ethical and moral codes have changed over time - one example being the treatment of the mentally ill.

I found the one-night incestuous relationship between Delph and Danny to be an interesting echo of the first-cousin marriage that started the family history. It was a way of bringing the book full circle. When the cousins marry, the relatives shake their heads and think, who knows what sort of children this union might produce. When Lenz Alter is born, and his mother dies in childbirth, the author throws in a comment that it is too bad the mother did not live long enough to learn that her son would be a Nobel Laureate. At that point it seems like his birth is a good and fortunate thing. By the end of the book, when we know about chemical warfare and Zyklon, his birth is looking a lot less fortunate, and the sisters view it as the sins of their fathers. When Delph and Danny get together, they have both realized by the next morning that it was a mistake. Why Delph went through with the pact is an unanswered question. Was she afraid of what might happen if she lived, and what her future might hold? Or was she just so set on that path that it was easier to stay on it than to make a last minute change? Did Delph feel like her relationship with her sisters was her life, and that with them gone, life would not be worth living?

I felt like the novel changed pace and style when the aunt arrived. To me, it felt like it was morphing into fantasy until they figured out who the mysterious woman was who had arrived on the scene and interrupted their plans. I set my hope in this interruption. Delph found satisfaction in caring for her aunt, attracted the attention of the bartender, and learned she had a possible future performing with her cousin. I thought she had discovered she had something to live for and would choose to hang around. It was so frustrating to see her possibilities (rent controlled apartment, an exiting job prospect, a love prospect) and to learn that she was blind to them.

Like Linda said, Vee was opting to die with dignity. As a side note, many Jews chose that option over surrendering their fate to the Nazis. Lady was depressed, and did not seem to respond favorably to treatment. Delph, on the other hand, had the world at her feet. We learned a great deal about her struggles, anxieties and shortcomings throughout the book; her strengths emerged in the final chapters when the opinions of others became known (she was attractive, talented, had a lovely voice, was a caregiver, etc.) Vee's husband encouraged Delph, but I had the impression that he complimented her specifically to counteract the negative opinions he knew she had of herself.

Interesting point about the cousins, Casceil, and how we learn that the Nobel winner's creation was deadly...and that Alter was acquainted with Einstein, whose bomb killed hundreds of thousands - many immediately and many more for generations. Both were devastated by the application of their work.

Did anyone besides me struggle with ambivalence over Natan's leaving the family when Delph was returned? One the one hand. I understood his desire to just get the **** away from his wife. On the other, I fell he was weak in not staying to protect and care for Delph. I picked up that he was a suicide as well. Anyone else?

I thought I heard the voice change when the part Delphie claims she wrote on her own began, but I might just be patting myself on the back. Did anyone else notice?

We watched "The Woman in Gold" starting Helen Mirren about the return of the Gustav Klimt to the woman from whose family the Nazis stole it. I found it to be the best film I've seen with the Holocaust as a parallel theme in quite a while. I found it an excellent companion piece while reading this book.

I agree that Woman in Gold was a good companion piece to this book. My husband (who just finished the book) and I watched it a few nights ago and it did fit well with the historical part of this book.