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Discussion Guide
Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun
The story of Morayo Da Silva, a seventy-five year old, cosmopolitan Nigerian woman living in hip San Francisco. She makes the most out of life, relying on family, friends, and chance encounters. She is a character we can all relate to and are unlikely to forget.
Book club questions for Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun by Sarah Ladipo Manyika
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
This novel was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, an award for novels that “break the mold or extend the possibilities of the novel form.” In what ways do you think this book breaks the mold?
Morayo is 75 and brimming with sexuality. What other books do you know of that explore the sexual inner life of an older woman?
How would you explain the title of this novel? (A note at the beginning of the book tells us that the title is taken from Mary Ruefle’s poem ‘Donkey On’).
Would you categorize Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun as a novel or a novella? Do you think this distinction matters?
Morayo arranges her books according to which characters she believes ought to be talking to each other. Which books on your shelves would you arrange to “talk” to each other? With which books might you arrange Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun and why?
One reviewer of the novel has observed that “Morayo doesn’t seem to think of herself as an “old woman”, but that’s how people see her, and they judge her and make assumptions about her based on her age. The conflict between internal youth and external age, in fact, is at the centre of the book.” https://andrewblackman.net/2016/12/like-a-mule-bringing-ice-cream-to-the-sun-by-sarah-ladipo-manyika
What assumptions about old age did you find challenged or affirmed by this novel?
Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun Book Club Questions PDF
Click here for a printable PDF of the Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun discussion questions
This Book of the Month and discussion guide are shared in partnership with Sarah Ladipo Manyika.