READERS GUIDE
Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. My Murder provides an exciting twist on the classic thriller as its main character, Louise, a happily married mother of one, must attempt to solve her own murder. In what other ways does Lou subvert the idea of the standard protagonist in fiction?
2. Lou is part of a women’s support group formed by four others who were killed and brought back to life under similar circumstances. Through their conversations in group, what do we learn about the women, the replication committee, and society’s response to it? How do the survivors understand themselves and one another now that they’ve been brought back?
3. While My Murder is a mystery story with a speculative twist, it also has a compelling family drama at its core. Discuss Lou’s relationships with Silas and Nova. What is the novel saying about the complexities of motherhood, and the possibility for ambivalent feelings about the roles of mother and wife?
4. Lou has a job at The Room, a virtual reality space for touch therapy, where she transforms into whatever person her clients want to hold. What kind of intimacy is possible between strangers? What sort of comfort does Lou give her clients, and what sort does she gain from the job through the skins she wears? What about when Celia Baum visits The Room?
5. My Murder takes place in a not-so-distant future where a virtual reality game like Early Evening is as popular as social media is today. The game allows the user to play both as Angela, a murdered woman, and as Edward Early, the murderer. What is the book saying about the relationship among entertainment, spectatorship/voyeurism, and complicity as each relates to violence against women? What is it saying about the role technology plays?
6. Consider the different ways in which the women of the support group ease into their return—Lacey’s amateur detective group, the Luminols; Fern’s risky request; Angela’s new “job” and subsequent fame; Jasmine’s gaming. In what ways do these activities shape their new identities and/or reflect their old ones? What role does agency play in forming identity? Did any of the women’s coping mechanisms surprise you?
7. In the world of My Murder, convicted killers are “benighted,” or put in a coma for the time of their sentence, while videos designed to increase empathy play in their dreams. What might be the risks and benefits of such a technology? What about the other technologies in the novel, such as cloning or virtual reality?
8. Fern and Lou meet a woman at a coffee shop who suggests that the government wouldn’t choose to bring back all murdered women, only those who fit certain criteria, who are “good girls,” as she says. What do Fern and Lou learn about the kinds of women society prioritizes to clone? How does this change their understanding of what they went through?
9. While many of the themes at the heart of My Murder are dark in nature, the narrative voice of the novel is often playful and humorous. Did this approach affect your reading of the novel?
10. Early in the novel, Lou observes that women in the world must always take precautions: “We snuck glances at the man walking a little dog (a prop?), at the man who interrupted us in the meeting (aggressive?), at the man who shared our bed (how well can you really know someone?).” How does this idea later inform the “Evening Is Ours” uprising in Early Evening?
11. In the stunning conclusion of My Murder, Lou does, in fact, get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding her death and reanimation. Were you surprised by the answers that she finds, or did they match your suspicions? Of all the twists the book takes, which was the most interesting?
