BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION QUESTIONS CLICK HERE FOR PDF
1. How does Clyde Aronson’s abandonment and childhood growing up in the Hebrew National Orphan Home explain his adult behavior?
2. Clyde has a larger-than-life personality. When you’re with him you feel like you’re in the center of the universe. This is an irresistible trait. Does it make up for his flaws?
3. At times, Clyde shows a reckless disregard for Joanna’s wellbeing. Yet Joanna’s love for her father is fierce. Why is she so loyal to him?
4. Would Joanna be better off if she cut ties with her father, once she was out of the house?
5. As the firstborn, Susan has a prominent role in the family, and she leads a more conventional life than Joanna. Why, then, do you think Susan is the one who separates from her parents? Has Susan been better able to move forward in life? Why?
6. Clyde can be tender and thoughtful. Also obnoxious and dismissive. How would Clyde have fared in the #Metoo movement?
7. Fred is a gentle and stabilizing force in Joanna’s life and more evolved than Clyde in his attitude toward women. In what way does Fred hold Joanna back?
8. In the novel, an inheritance means more than money. What does the inheritance symbolize for Joanna? For Evie? For Brenda?
9. Joanna commits a felony when she breaks into the house, violating Brenda’s privacy. Should she be punished?
10. The Orphan’s Daughter is fiction, but the Hebrew National Orphan Home existed, and the author’s father was there for ten years, starting in 1924 when he was seven. The Home had its own farm, synagogue, school, teachers and mentors, a newspaper and a marching band. But it also had sadistic supervisors and severe punishments. (In 1936, reforms were made by a progressive superintendant.) Do you think the HNOH provided a good upbringing for poor Jewish children? Does it seem better or worse than the foster care system we have now? Would foster children today benefit from orphanage life?
11. Clyde tells his daughters the years they were in elementary school were the happiest time of his life. Joanna tells Clyde the year the family spent abroad was transformational for her. Each statement is a gift to the other. The way we reflect on the past and share it with family and friends is a path toward forgiveness and redemption. Do you believe these gifts are adequate?
12. Joanna is criticized for her obsession with the past. What does it mean to hang onto the past? How can reliving the past lead to personal growth? How does it hinder personal growth?
13. The Jewish Daily Forward published a weekly feature called “The Gallery of Missing Husbands.” Does it surprise you that so many Jewish men deserted their families in 1920s America?
14. Clyde has a colorful and close extended family, yet no one is willing or able to take in Clyde and his brother Harry. Is this understandable? Is it forgivable? Do you believe Clyde’s mother was wrong to put him in an institution? Why does Clyde call her a saint?
15. The Orphan’s Daughter opens with this line: “I broke into the house I grew up in to steal back my childhood.” Do you think Joanna successfully takes possession of her history by the end of the novel?