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The Complicities
After her husband Alan’s massive white-collar crimes are exposed, Suzanne’s wealthy, comfortable life shatters: Alan goes to prison, and Suzanne files for divorce. Ignoring a steady stream of calls from her ex at Norfolk State Prison, Suzanne thinks she can cleanse herself of all connections to her ex-husband and their old life together. Instead, she decamps to a Massachusetts beach town where she creates a new life and identity.
Then Alan is released early, and the many people whose lives he has ruined demand restitution. At the same time, awestruck and obsessed by the spectacle of a major whale stranding on a beach near her home, Suzanne makes an apparently high-minded decision that in turn reverberates not only through Alan’s life as he tries to rebuild but also through the lives of their son, Alan’s new wife, his estranged mother, and, ultimately, Suzanne herself.
A resonant and bitingly perceptive story about the people next to the bad guys—the queasy and ambiguous territory people like Suzanne inhabit as they stand by, and the ways in which they try to thread the needle of their culpability—The Complicities is a searing look at moral responsibility, and about who, in the end, pays for a crime.
This discussion guide was shared and sponsored in partnership with Algonquin Books
Book club questions for The Complicities by Stacey D'Erasmo
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
What is the meaning of complicity to you?
Do you feel that any of the characters in the novel are complicit? If so, who? And in what way? Are some more complicit than others?
Why does the whale stranding have such a big impact on Suzanne?
What do you think of Suzanne’s decision about the money? Would you do the same? Why or why not?
Why does D’Erasmo describe the death and decomposition of the whale in such detail?
The story of Suzanne and those around her is told through different POVs. Why do you think the book is narrated in such a complex way?
Why do you think D’Erasmo chose not to give Alan a voice? What do you think he would say if he were telling his side of the story?
What is the role of money in this novel? If it were a character, what sort of character would it be? How does class affect the people and events in the book?
What would be the most just outcome in the situation described in the novel? How often do we see just outcomes in situations like this, and why do you think that is?
Throughout the novel, the characters all find themselves in risky, compromised, or dubious circumstances. Why do you think they make the decisions that they do? What are the value systems of each character? How and why do these sometimes clash?
Suzanne, Lydia, and Sylvia are all mothers. How does motherhood influence their characters, their choices, and the trajectory of their lives in general? What are the differences among them, as mothers?
Of all the characters in the book, Noah has perhaps the most vulnerable and sincere relationship with Alan. What kind of father is Alan to Noah? How does the father-son dynamic affect what happens in the book? How is it different from the mother-son dynamic? Have you seen that difference in your own experience?
In The Complicities, the past just won’t stay in the past. Why do you think the past has such a grip on these people? What makes it so sticky?
Which character do you find the most sympathetic? Why?
The Complicities Book Club Questions PDF
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