Spoiled Milk

What were your initial impressions of Briarley, Emily, Violet, and their classmates? What other novels does Spoiled Milk remind you of, classic or contemporary? How does Avery Curran modernize earlier boarding school novels?

Did you find Emily to be a reliable narrator? How did her biases influence you as you read on? How did memory factor into Emily’s storytelling?

Spiritualism plays a major role in Spoiled Milk. How familiar were you with the history of seances and spiritualism before reading? What surprised you most about the communication between the dead and the living in the novel?

Several of the sixth form girls view Briarley as their primary home, which leads a few of them to remain on campus longer than they necessarily would have, given the danger. How did you relate to the novel’s portrait of found family? Is Emily’s trust in the school completely unfounded?

In Violet’s absence, Emily finds herself reevaluating her friendships with the other girls in her class—which of Emily’s classmates did you connect with most, and why?

What did you think about the space between the students and their teachers in the novel? Emily and Marion both express a desire to continue their educations after Briarley. What do you think you would have hoped for, if you had attended Briarley?

As Emily and Evelyn investigate the circumstances of Violet’s death, their own relationship changes shape. What do you think might have happened between them, had Violet lived?

Emily and her classmates are young women on the verge of adulthood in 1928—what did you think of the lives these characters are being prepared for, by comparison to the world that we, the reader, know they will face? How did that inform your reading of their education and outlooks?

Spoiled Milk plays with elements of the gothic and classic horror. What does that mean to you as a reader? Did you feel the book fell more into one category than another? What do those themes add to the historical setting?

Now that you’ve finished, what do you think was behind the unsettling events at Briarley? Which scene was most frightening, to you? What did you think of the events suggested in the epilogue?