1. Durable Goods is a first-person narrative. What effect does this technique have on the telling of the story for you? Who is the novel’s narrator, and what are some characteristics of her narrative voice? How does Berg’s writing capture or evoke the character of adolescence?
2. Throughout the story, Katie sometimes calls her father “Dad,” but most often refers to him as “he” or “him.” It is clear that Katie and her sister are talking about their father, even though they never mention his name. Likewise, their mother also remains nameless throughout the novel. What does this tell you about Katie’s relationship with her father and the evolution of her relationship with her mother?
3. Katie’s father is a conflicted character. Though he is abusive and neglectful, he is not completely villainized. Discuss Berg’s characterizations of Mr. Nash, as a man and as a father. How did you feel about him at the end of the book? Were you ever sympathetic toward him, as Katie becomes at the end of the novel, when she recalls him standing out in the rain without an umbrella?
4. Katie is an astute and insightful observer of people and situations. At one point she comments, “Sometimes, it seems to me that the only thing in the world is people just trying.” How did you interpret this statement? How is this sentiment reflected in and woven throughout the novel?
5. There are several themes laced through the novel, such as the ways people cope with loss and grief and the different kinds of relationships between women. What are some of the underlying themes in this book, and how does Berg capture or express them? What literary techniques does she employ to convey the themes of the novel?
6. Discuss the title Durable Goods. Where is this phrase mentioned in the story, and what meaning does it hold for Katie? For her father? What meaning does it have for you?
7. The novel is shaded by a deep sense of spirituality. Katie speaks often of her relationship with God, and we see how that relationship is affected by the loss of her mother. How does Katie reflect on religion? How does this help her cope with a sense of grief?
8. Grief and loss are ongoing themes in the book, on several levels. What sort of losses do the Nash girls suffer throughout the book? How do they cope with them? How does their father cope with his grief? Give a few examples by which it becomes clear that communicating pain is considered taboo in the Nash household. What impact does this limitation have on the relationships within the Nash family?
9. Describe Katie’s friend Cherylanne and her family (Belle and Bubba). How does the apparent disparity between the two girls and their families help to shed light on Katie’s character and situation?
10. Berg’s writing has been described as both “quiet” and “delicate.” With respect to Durable Goods, how would you interpret these descriptions? Do you think they are accurate? How would you describe Berg’s style in this novel?
11. Durable Goods is imbued with a sense of immediacy. How does Berg make the reader feel present in that particular time and place with Katie Nash? Select some passages that were particularly telling or successful in creating a sense of setting. Did Berg’s technique in creating a literary atmosphere enable you to feel more connected to her characters?
12. While Katie’s situation is unique, she is truly a universal character. Did you find yourself able to identify with her? If so, how, and at what points in the story did you feel most connected? Did you identify with any of the other characters? How?
13. The end of the novel is infused with both hope and sadness. Did the end of the book leave you wanting more or wondering what would happen to Katie, Diane, and their father? How did you feel about Katie’s decision to return home? What do you predict will happen to the family at this point in their story?
ELIZABETH BERG is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Say When, True to Form, Never Change, and Open House, which was an Oprah’s Book Club Selection in 2000. Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year, and Talk Before Sleep was short-listed for the ABBY award in 1996. The winner of the 1997 New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, she is also the author of a nonfiction work, Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True. She lives in Chicago.
“Touching…[A] deft, sweet, and often comic novel.”
—Chicago Tribune
UNTIL THE REAL THING COMES ALONG
by ELIZABETH BERG
“A PERCEPTIVE COMEDY OF MODERN MANNERS … At the end of each undemanding day, Patty goes home to an empty apartment and listens to her biological clock ticking as ominously as Captain Hook’s crocodile…. Patty wants a husband and a baby, and not necessarily in that order…. But Patty has a problem. Try as she might, there is only one man she can love—her best friend, Ethan—and try as Ethan might, he is quite firmly and intractably gay. With rueful good humor, Until the Real Thing Comes Along shows how Patty and Ethan come to terms with the impossibility of having it all.” —The Boston Globe
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Available wherever books are sold
The Guide’s inside, so it’s perfect for your reading group.
www.randomhousereaderscircle.com
“Hilarious and heartbreaking… A book
worth buying.”
—San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
JOY SCHOOL
by ELIZABETH BERG
“A STORY THAT TUGS AT THE HEARTSTRINGS…. Thirteen-year-old Katie is new to her Missouri town, living alone with a stern, inaccessible father following her mother’s death. Unable to fit in at school, she forges alliances where she can: with her housekeeper, with a pimply fellow misfit named Cynthia, and with the gorgeous Taylor, who gets her kicks out of shoplifting. Most frustrating of all is Katie’s imperfect friendship with the proprietor of a local gas station, a handsome twenty-three-year-old who shares her love of checkers but doesn’t return her crush. With humor and an eye for telling detail, Berg conveys the way each unpromising element of Katie’s life ultimately offers her more than she had anticipated.” —People
Published by Ballantine Books
Available wherever books are sold
The Guide’s inside, so it’s perfect for your reading group.
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“Berg knows the hearts of her
characters intimately, showing them with
compassion, humor, and an
illuminating generosity.”
—The Seattle Times
WHAT WE KEEP
by ELIZABETH BERG
“BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN… What We Keep is about ties that are buried but not broken, wounds that are dressed but never heal, and love that changes form but somehow survives…. [Ginny Young] crosses the country for a reluctant reunion with the mother she has not seen in thirty-five years. During the long hours of her flight, she returns in memory to the summer when she turned twelve and her family turned inside out…. Berg’s tender depiction of a young girl’s view of the world is uncanny and gives this story its heart. She captures perfectly what it was like to grow up in the ’50s, presenting it like a long-forgotten, but still sharp photograph…. What We Keep will touch you. It will allow you, for a few hours, to see the world through the eyes of a twelve-year-old and feel in your adult heart the stubborn endurance of love.”
—USA Today
Published by Ballantine Books
Available wherever books are sold
The Guide’s inside, so it’s perfect for your reading group.
www.randomhousereaderscircle.com
Durable Goods is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1993 by Elizabeth Berg
Reader’s guide copyright © 2003 by Random House, Inc.
Author interview copyright © 2004 by Eli
zabeth Berg and The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Random House Reader’s Circle and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
www.randomhousereaderscircle.com
Library of Congress Control Number is available upon request from the publisher.
eISBN: 978-0-307-76339-6
This book was originally published in hardcover form by Random House, Inc., in 1993.
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Elizabeth Berg, Durable Goods
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