Valentine

The novel offers portraits of imperfect but heroic women. Consider the strengths and failings of Ginny, Gloria, and Mary Rose. Which woman do you think is the strongest and why?

The novel offers several allusions to contemporary culture, including the music of Patti Smith, Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys, Kris Kristofferson, Joe Ely and the Flatlanders, Joni Mitchell, and others as well as the poetry of Emily Dickinson and E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. Choose one of these and show how that allusion helped you understand a character in the novel.

The novel uses two holidays—Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July—to shape its thematic story about how women claim their identity within and against a smothering male culture. Using the holidays as a metaphor, define the arc of independence traced by either Corrine Shepard or Gloria Ramírez.

The scene at Penwell in which Mary Rose nearly shoots an innocent man illustrates the novel’s argument about the danger and pointlessness of anger and vengeance, of using might to make right. Compare what Mary Rose does—and doesn’t do—with the courtroom scenes in which justice is supposedly meted out. What makes right in the novel?

Assess the male characters in the novel—most prominently Potter Shepard, Dale Strickland, Jim Pierce, Judge Rice, Jesse Belden, and Robert Whitehead. What do they share? How do they differ? How does the novel paint any one of them as heroic? Consider whether the novel does more than bash men.

What does the novel’s shifting point of view gain or lose? How did that shifting perspective direct or stymie your sympathy? Research point of view and its thematic value: Why might the novel deny any one of these women the narrative center?

The young women in the story undergo significant emotional and psychological change. They grow up. Compare and contrast how D.A., Karla, and Glory each transition into adulthood. What lessons do they each learn that make them stronger?

The episode centering on Karla Shipley can seem a bit too pat—too quick, easy, or simple. Dale gets a kind of frontier justice. Considering the novel’s larger argument that compassion and empathy alone redeem character, comment on whether Karla’s actions and her getting away with it are fitting or disturbing.