Hachette Livre

Hachette Livre Reading Group Guides

Welcome to our Reading Group guide for Radiance by Shaena Lambert. We invite you to consider and discuss the following questions when reading this book:

  1. Discuss the meaning of the title Radiance. To what or whom does it refer?
  2. Although the narrative is mainly from Daisy’s perspective, the voice is omniscient, allowing us glimpses into the thoughts of all the main characters, and even some incidental ones, for example the interpreter at the POW camp. Why did Shaena Lambert make this choice? How did you benefit as a reader from these glimpses into many minds?
  3. Irene and Daisy are unlikely friends, yet they have maintained their bumpy relationship for many years. Why do you think they are attracted to each other? Why did Daisy join the Project? Why did Irene? Each believes she understands the motives of the other in their dealings with Keiko–is either woman correct?
  4. When Irene pitches a story to Dean Atchity about the miserable existence of women in the suburbs, he reacts with distaste and she gives up. Would you describe Irene’s concept of the lot of the suburban wife, in the particular example of Riverside Meadows, as accurate? Why do you think she sees it this way? What is your reaction to her as a character?
  5. Tom is attracted to Keiko because he sees in her his lost little sister Emmy. What is it about Keiko that makes him feel this way?
  6. One of our earliest glimpses of Keiko begins with the repeated phrase “imagine a girl...”. Later in the novel, David Greenberg is described in the same way. Why this parallel? Discuss the roles played by David Greenberg and Keiko in the unfolding of Walter and Daisy’s lives.
  7. Walter feels haunted by a past act of cowardice, when he signed a letter in The New York Times condemning a fellow writer who had called the Moscow trials a sham. He confesses this to Keiko and then burns the manuscript he has laboured over for years. When Daisy confronts him, their painful marital impasse is broken. What do you think accounts for this? What was Keiko’s role?
  8. Daisy describes Keiko’s face in her memories as being like the moon: “One half was pure and white, the other half mottled and porous. The unbroken side was as smooth as porcelain, terrifying in its brightness, but in every memory it was the pocked side that drew Daisy in”. Why is Daisy drawn to Keiko’s dark side? Which side, if any, is the true reflection of Keiko? What other examples are there in the novel of the tension between light and dark?
  9. Keiko is frustrated by Dr. Carney’s insistence that she tell the “truth” about the bombing of Hiroshima, preferring to recall her grandfather’s many stories about the sly fox. “Now that is a true story,” thinks Keiko when she remembers one such story. Why does she feel her grandfather’s tales are more truthful than the story Dr. Carney wants her to tell? How does Keiko find refuge in the stories of the foxes?
  10. Keiko in her bandaged state becomes even more of a bakemono, or shape-shifter. It is during this time that she becomes a sort of confessor figure to many, including Daisy, Walter, Tom, Ed, Fran and several others in the Riverside Meadows community. Why do they reveal their darkest thoughts to her?
  11. Keiko is tormented by immense guilt for abandoning the faceless mother on the bridge who asked for water and help for her baby; for the childish lie that caused her mother to walk to town; for her petty thievery; for surviving when so many others perished. How does this guilt affect her? Can she find forgiveness?
  12. After Keiko disappears, Daisy tries to imagine what has happened to her. What do you think of her speculations? What do you imagine? How did this open end to her story make you feel?
  13. The novel is broken into seven titled sections: “Ash Maid,” “Fox Child,” “Storyteller,” “Ghost” ,“Interpreter,” “Bakemono” and “Fire Bird”. What is the significance of these titles?
  14. Motherhood in its many forms weaves a constant thread through the narrative, from the descriptions of the atomic bomb as the “dark mother” to Daisy’s lost baby, to Keiko’s lost mother and the faceless mother on the bridge. Compare these versions of motherhood, particularly in the context of the novel’s closing gesture. How did the ending make you feel?

Current Reading Group Titles

  1. Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat
  2. Radiance by Shaena Lambert
  3. Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon
  4. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
  5. Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott
  6. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
  7. Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
  8. How To Talk to a Widower by Jonathan Tropper
  9. Still Waters by Camilla Noli
  10. Wives of the East Wind by Liu Hong
  11. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
  12. The Keep by Jennifer Egan
  13. The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther
  14. Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
  15. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
  16. April in Paris by Michael Wallner
  17. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
  18. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
  19. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
  20. Red River by Lalita Tademy
  21. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
  22. Rosetta by Barbara Ewing
  23. The Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin
  24. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
  25. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell