reader's guide
"Reading groups will find a helpful and constructive, moving story that explores the passage of time and life as a parent mentally declines, issues that we all have to deal with at one time or another."
Kirkus Reviews Special: reading-group books
This guide is also provided by publisher Henry Holt on their website at http://www.henryholt.com/readingguides/fuchs.htm
About this Guide:
The following author biography, reviews and list of questions, are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this novel. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach Making an Exit.
About the Book: At a time when such things were rare, Elinor Fuchs's mother, Lil, escaped a miserable marriage, took back her maiden name, left young Elinor to be raised by grandparents, and launched a career that led her from the midwest to Washington, D.C. Rejoining her as an adolescent, Elinor watched as Lil traveled the world selling automotive parts and military gear, gave fabulous parties, and "in any given room, took up all the air there was." With her stunning looks and drive for success, Lil was a figure to admire, not a mother to love. Elinor determined to despise her mother's values and, once in college, to keep her distance.
Making an Exit is the moving account of what happened afterward, during the final years of Lil's life. Following her mother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's, Fuchs finds herself the caretaker. As the disease progresses, she becomes her mother's mother, dressing her, bathing her, feeding her-all with growing compassion. Lil changes, too: filled with new warmth, the word "love" now regularly crosses her lips. And through the fantastic poetry in the disintegration of Lil's language, mother and daughter make a surprising new start.
With wit, wisdom, and theatrical flair, Making an Exit tells an uncommon story of a parent's decline-less a conventional narrative of aging and loss than one of discovery, devotion, and spiritual growth. "The last ten years," writes Fuchs, "they were our best."
About the Author: Elinor Fuchs, a professor at the Yale School of Drama, is the author of an award-winning play and major works of criticism, including The Death of Character. A nationally recognized theater critic, Fuchs wrote for The Village Voice for more than ten years, and has also contributed to The New York Times, Vogue, and American Theatre. She lives in Brooklyn.
Discussion Questions
1. What is the effect of the first scene, presenting Lillian as boisterous but volatile? How did you interpret the author's admission that her mother was "always impossible. . . .because there was so much of her"? Did your impressions of Lillian change throughout the book?
2. As a biography, Making an Exit presents a life shaped by bold, unconventional decisions. To what do you attribute Lillian's drive for independence and originality? What prevents her from exhibiting maternal love with equal zeal?
3. How do Elinor's impressions of her father compare to Lillian's attitude toward him? What does Lillian try to teach Elinor about men (lessons continued when she meets the Professor at the Washington Home)? What enabled Lillian to succeed in such a male-dominated industry?
4. Do you see growth in Lillian's or Elinor's characters in the course of their life together? If so, what accounts for the change? Do you believe it is really possible for anyone to grow and change even up to the extreme end of life in conditions of illness and dementia?
5. What drew Lillian, Bea, and their brother Ed to such different paths in life? Does Lillian's illness seem to change or enhance her relationship with Ed?
6. Understandably, Elinor feels hurt by her mother's abandonment and shuts her out as a young adult. What enables Elinor to forge a relationship with her mother later, and to become such a devoted caregiver in the last eight years of her mother's life?
7. We often speak of children "forgiving" their parents for failures in parenting. Less often is it suggested that children may need to ask forgiveness for rejecting their parents. Who asks forgiveness of whom in Making an Exit?
8. Elinor writes that her mother's illness gave them both a chance to share a lost childhood. What do Elinor and Lillian communicate to us, and to each other, through their Conversation Pieces? What significant exchange is taking place during their seemingly childlike interactions?
9. One of the author's greatest concerns is preserving her mother's dignity. A woman who thrived on being stylish, Lillian continues to relish costume jewelry and attractive clothing, though she is losing her awareness of hygiene. What does Lillian's view of herself teach us about appearances and self-perception in general?
10. What does this memoir demonstrate about achieving quality of life, from entrance to exit?
11. There is an active debate in the United States at present as to whether or not families should aggressively extend the lives of the ill elderly when they are suffering from irreversible illness. If you were in Elinor's position, would you give instructions to her doctors not to treat your mother in certain situations, even if it meant hastening death? What if such instructions had been in place when Lil was hospitalized with a blood infection?
12. How did you respond to the scene in which Elinor learns of her mother's death? Is it possible to feel prepared for such a phone call, even after many chapters leading up to it? How would you characterize the book's closing lines?
