Someone Has Led This Child to Believe - Discussion Guide and Author Q&A

Questions and topics for discussion This is a book club discussion guide for Someone Has Led This Child to Believe by Regina Louise. It includes suggest discussion questions, which may help spark new and interesting conversations in your book club.

1. Regina often creates an alternate reality to fill a void in her life (“My philosophy was to use my imagination to see things the way I thought they should be, and maybe one day could be, and work to no end to make things happen,” page XXX). In this way, how does Regina use her imagination to create hope for herself in a dark situation? Discuss some examples of Regina using her imagination to escape from her circumstances.

2. Jeanne Kerr gave Regina a dictionary and instructed her to “never skip over a word you don’t know.” (page XXX). Throughout her life, how does Regina’s understanding of words and their meanings empower her?

3. Create a list of Regina’s strengths and weaknesses. How do they change at different points in her life?

4. On page XXX, how does the use of repetition—“Man, y’all gotta take me off this mess”—affect her message? What did she convey to you in that passage?

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5. The story is broken up into four parts. Why was it presented this way, and what role does each part play in Regina’s journey?

6. How did reading confidential documents about Regina make you feel? Do you think Regina’s life course would have been different if she hadn’t seen them? How? 7. Regina reads the contents of her personal file as a teenager. How might her reaction to that information have differed at other stages in her life—at age 20? 30? 40?

8. The book’s title is taken from a letter on page XXX: “Between you and me, I think someone has led this child to believe she is above average intelligence when she is marginal at best.” How did you interpret the title before experiencing it in its full context?

After reading that paragraph, did your interpretation change?

How? 9. Regina later believes she will “never make it to the center because I was destined to be trapped, and ill-defined by the margins.”

How is she able to overcome this and eventually “make it to the center,” as she puts it?

10. Jeanne Kerr stays in Regina’s mind long after they’ve been separated. How does Jeanne help alter Regina’s perception of herself, even when she’s not physically there? How does Gwen Forde’s?

11. Regina has a fraught relationship with Gwen Forde. What motivates Regina when she is with Gwen? And vice versa?

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12. At graduation (page XXX), Regina and her choir mates perform “I Sing the Body Electric” from the musical Fame. Listen to the song and pay close attention to the lyrics—how do they mirror Regina’s own feelings at that moment in her life? Why do you think she chose this particular song?

13. Pick a passage that stood out to you. What elements made it memorable?

14. Regina fixates on the idea of belonging—to trauma, to a person, to a system, etc. For Regina, what does it mean to belong to something? What does she belong to at the beginning of the story? At the end?

15. Regina, somehow, learns the value of keeping “silent vows.” How, was she able to do so, and why do you imagine it was important for her to do so?

Q&A with author Regina Louise Someone Has Led This Child to Believe is, in many ways, a follow-up to your first memoir, Somebody’s Someone, published in 2003. What compelled you to write this book at this time in your life?

This book interrogates trauma and the aftermath of broken souls left in its wake. I believe I better understand—more so now than when I was writing my first book—how to navigate the varying degrees of trauma, loss, and abandonment, as well as the intersectionality, that comes with growing up in (and aging out) out-of-home care and foster care. These situations often cause incredibly challenging human emotions and dilemmas. For twenty-plus years, I’ve been healing my traumas and rewiring behavior patterns from my past. I’ve learned to change habituated ways of responding to experiences and traumas. I am an adult now, and I have a better sense of my own agency, protective factors, and inner strengths, all of which aid me in reaching back into the dark and facing powerful and emotionally charged memories.

Since writing your first book, you adapted it into a play, and also earned an MFA in creative writing at University of California, Riverside. How has your work as a writer evolved since you wrote Somebody’s Someone?

With my first book, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Writing that book was a purely organic reaction to a disorienting experience I had. I could have behaved badly—very badly—towards myself, which is how I learned to survive and stay safe as a child (by never holding an adult 239

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accountable for his/her behaviors). Instead, I ran home after the challenging event and picked up a pencil instead of a razor blade (or worse).

Then I found a piece of paper, instead of a handle of vodka. I sat down and listened to the small voice inside me, rather than the bullying, dark side of my nature that tried to convince me I wasn’t worth the effort it would take to listen to my gut.

This book, my second, is shaped and/or inspired by various authors I’ve read and respect. That’s what grad school did for me: it gave me studio time to begin the process of learning who and what I was in relation to the craft of writing. I learned the importance of research and the importance of spatial and temporal realities and how those realities affect people whose lives are carved by trauma. So this book is different in that way.

Your book deals with so many painful experiences. Were there any parts that were particularly challenging to revisit?

Writing about my womb-mother was particularly challenging, mainly because I’m certain the chance for us to get to know one another and perhaps engage in courageous and radical conversations is gone. Thank the Lord I got me some education and deep personal healing because it has helped me elevate my perspective from victim to victor.

I now better understand the historical conditions that aided and abetted not only my mother’s failure but also the generational underachievement and lack of opportunities that is synonymous with being born black. As I state in my book, I am grateful for the journey: it has given me the privilege to transform my devastation into my motivation.

What do you hope readers will take away from Someone Has Led This Child to Believe?

The indestructible nature of the human spirit, and the importance of keeping one’s solemn vow—especially to one’s self.

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You were adopted after the publication of Somebody’s Someone. What was that experience like?

Great question! Unfortunately, there’s nothing close to enough white space to answer this question here. Stay on the lookout for book three!

What’s next for you?

Book three. More coaching. Maybe a PhD. Maybe a television show where I am coaching people into their highest and greatest version of themselves. Maybe a professorship. I’m open.