The Husband's Secret

Would Tess and Will’s marriage have been strengthened or weakened if he and Felicity had consummated their affair?

The Berlin Wall is present throughout the book, both in character discussion and in flashback. What does the wall signify in the text? Why the Berlin Wall and not another historical event?

Cecilia feels that John-Paul has been lying for their entire marriage and, ultimately, that he’s turned her own life into a lie. Do you agree with this? Why does Cecilia feel that her own life is a lie when she was unaware of John-Paul’s terrible secret?

 The novel both opens and closes with allusions to Pandora. What’s the significance of the myth of Pandora as applied to the rest of the text?

Is there a villain in this text? If yes, who is it and why? If not, what force is working against the protagonists?

What can you learn from the novel? What lessons and through which characters did you learn? Be specific about where, when, and why these lessons are learned.

Grief is a significant theme in the novel. How has grief affected the characters? What do they do to deal with their grief? How have their lives been affected? Is it possible to move on from grief?

Grief is also tied to other emotions in the novel, such as anger and guilt. How does the combination of emotions complicate the characters’ experiences in ways that perhaps pure grief would not?