THE YEAR THE MUSIC CHANGED
Questions for discussion [NOTE: Additional discussion questions and an author interview are available at www.tobypress.com/books/music_guide.htm]
1. Brown vs. the Board of Education was decided late in 1954, ushering in the slow process of school desegregation in the American South and the movement for civil rights. It has been said the civil rights movement would not have come about nearly so early nor so forcefully, had it not been for the advent of rock and roll. Do you think this is true? Discuss the ways you think rock and roll music might have hastened the budding civil rights movement of the mid-1950s.
2. Why do you think the author chose to make race an undercurrent rather than a dominant theme in her novel? Are there instances where racial divisions are presented as somewhat blurred in The Year the Music Changed?
3. Why do you think the author chose her epigraph from Sara Teasdale’s poem, “Those Who Love”? How might the lines she uses apply to the characters in the book? Which of the characters do you think loves most truly and deeply?
4. The book is more about Achsa than Elvis. Why do you think the author chose to have Elvis answer Achsa’s letters, rather than simply to tell Achsa's story?
5. What do you think Penelope symbolizes in the story?
6. The Year the Music Changed takes place before the advent of feminism. The book shows women in relationships with men as subservient, even abused. Do you believe Achsa will break this mould? Why, or why not? How has her Aunt Mavis ensured that she, herself, will not fall into this pattern?
7. What do you think is the author’s attitude toward beauty? What attributes does not being beautiful foster in Achsa? Are they gifts, compensations, or detriments?
8. What do you think might be the significance of Colonel Parker entering Elvis’s life so soon after Elvis's Cadillac burns?
9. Why do you think Achsa is so drawn to the city of New York?
10. Compare Achsa’s relationship to her “inside voice” with Elvis’s relationship to his. How has Achsa’s “inside voice” evolved by the story’s end?
11. Why do you think Achsa was able to realize her innermost dreams, while Elvis was not?
