Book Club Kit
Discussion Questions 1. Sophomores follows the experience of all three members of the Malone family. What was your reading experience like as you switched perspectives among family members? Did you identify more closely with one or another?
7. In addition to losing his job, Pat faces a reckoning when both his MS and his alcoholism escalate. What role do his diseases play in his relationship with his family? Where do you think Pat finds a support system, if he does at all?
2. How does Mr. Oglesby’s class influence Dan? Do you think Dan’s outlook on life and his education is different by the end of the novel? How so?
8. Sophomores is full of missed connections among the Malones. Talk about your favorite moment in which the family comes together. Do they ever find a way of understanding one another?
3. Anne spends much of the novel struggling with her faith, particularly as part of the jury for the trial of Reverend Standing Raleigh. How does Anne’s Catholicism influence her view of Raleigh and her relationship with her fellow jurors? Did you find that any of the tensions from the trial filtered into her own life? 4. Pat and Anne both have complicated relationships with their families. How did their upbringings influence them? Do you think those upbringings played roles in how they attempt to raise Dan? 5. Dallas features heavily in Sophomores, both as geographic setting and as a community. In what ways does the city’s culture, landscape, and history impact the characters, especially given that the book is set during the late 1980s? 6. All different kinds of love are explored in this novel, from teenage crushes to religious faith to the unconditional bond of parenthood. How did you see love expressed by each of the Malones? How does love affect them in return?
9. At year’s end, Mr. Oglesby gives Dan a Norwegian rat summer reading list. What did you think of his selections? What titles would be on your own Norwegian rat list? 10. Pat, Anne, and Dan all undergo big and small transformations throughout the novel. Do you think people can fundamentally change? Why or why not? If yes, are there specific causes (or people) you think might play a role? 11. What do you think is next for the Malone family? What happens to Pat and Anne’s relationship? What about Dan?
A Conversation with
SEAN DESMOND Author photograph © Hillery Stone
Where did the title Sophomores come from? The word sophomore comes from the Greek for wise (sophos) and foolish (moros). The Malone family (Anne the mother, Pat the father, and Dan the son) is a classic example of people being too smart for their own good and unable to admit their problems. You are a 25-year veteran of the book publishing industry. How did this background influence your process of writing this book? I love telling stories. Working as a book editor for so many years, I am drawn to how someone learns to love reading and writing, and what the real work of that is about. And so, inspired by the man who taught me this (Mr. Oglesby, the English teacher in Sophomores), I wanted to explain how you become a “book person” and how understanding stories and ideas really matters. Struggles with alcoholism, disease, and faith play a large part in Sophomores. What was behind the decision to include such hard-hitting topics? I’m a recovering alcoholic, sober now over nine years. When you stop drinking, you take a look back and wonder: “So how did that happen?” And I realized I was on this path early. My father was diagnosed with MS when I was growing up, but he was extremely determined and resilient about fighting it. And part of that effort was that my family were devout Catholics. Faith was leaf, blossom, and bole. I went to twelve years of Catholic school, and on Sunday mornings at St. Rita’s, I was the altar boy, my father the lector, my mother the sacristan. What was the inspiration behind the trial in the novel? This was a very famous case in Dallas in the 1980s. Peggy Railey, the wife of Reverend Walker Railey, the pastor of First United Methodist, was found strangled in her driveway. The mystery of her attack was shocking and became this lurid scandal in Dallas society— the investigation and trial received O.J. Simpson–level attention from the local media. Lawrence Wright wrote a chilling piece in Texas Monthly about it.
How does being Irish Catholic impact the lives of the Malone family, and does it play any part in your own? Great question. I could write a book on this one. . . . The relationship between Mr. Oglesby and Dan, his student, is reminiscent to that of Robin Williams’s character and his students in the movie Dead Poets Society. Does this comparison resonate with you? To answer this question I went back and watched the movie again. Boy, is it over the top and I love it. And what it reminds me is that a great teacher is a great performer, and Mr. Oglesby is like that! Also, teenage boys are all sorts of fucked up, and that’s okay, that’s why English teachers use the great books out there to channel that experience and let young people realize they are normal for not feeling normal. Why did you decide to set Sophomores in Dallas? My family comes from Ireland (all four grandparents were born there), they settled in the Bronx, and my father worked for American Airlines, which transferred us to Dallas. So I was in Dallas for grade
school, middle school, and high school, and it was a fine time, but a foreign land. There are some great books set in Dallas, but I think it’s still underexplored as a town with its own culture, history, class lines, and divides. Though it is set more than 30 years ago, what elements of the story have contemporary relevance today? As I watch my own son work his way through high school (he’ll be a sophomore next year), I realize that it’s still tough for kids to figure it out. That never changes. This is your second novel, coming 20 years post your first novel, Adam’s Fall, which was adapted into the 2002 Paramount Pictures movie, Abandon. Do you see an onscreen future for Sophomores? Yes. It would be so cool! We could also do a Derry Girls like series for Netflix with the sophomores in Dan Malone’s class. Rick Linklater . . . call me . . . let’s do this! What’s next for you? Keep reading and writing. It never gets old.
SEAN DESMOND is the publisher of Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central, and has been in the publishing world for more than twenty-five years. His first novel, Adam’s Fall, was published in 2000 and was adapted into the film Abandon. Desmond lives in Brooklyn, New York.
A PLAYLIST INSPIRED BY THE BOOK
by Sean Desmond RADIO FREE EUROPE R.E.M.
POLICE AND THIEVES The Clash
WILD FLOWER The Cult
LIFE BY THE DROP Stevie Ray Vaughan
WHEN SMOKEY SINGS ABC
A HARD RAIN’S A-GONNA FALL Bob Dylan
HEAD OVER HEELS Tears for Fears
DON’T THINK TWICE, IT’S ALL RIGHT Bob Dylan
DROGHEDA (from The Thorn Birds ) Henry Mancini
CORRINA, CORRINA Bob Dylan
SHADOWS AND TALL TREES U2
WHEN I FALL IN LOVE Rick Astley
BOYS DON’T CRY The Cure
SHOUT The Isley Brothers
JET AIRLINER The Steve Miller Band
PISSIN’ IN THE WIND Jerry Jeff Walker
BOB DYLAN’S 115TH DREAM Bob Dylan
HOOPAW RAG Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
SLEDGEHAMMER Peter Gabriel
YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE, (from Carousel ) Christine Johnson, if you can find it, or Shirley Jones, if you can’t . . .
IRISH SOLDIER BOY Charlie and the Bhoys THE IRISH ROVER Clancy Brothers version THE CLOSE OF AN IRISH DAY The Brendan Mulhaire Band THE BOY IN THE BUBBLE Paul Simon
THE INTERNATIONALE Billy Bragg version AS I WENT OUT ONE MORNING Bob Dylan THE PARTING GLASS Clancy Brothers (live from Carnegie Hall version)