Sutton, J.R. Moehringer

Sutton

By J.R. Moehringer

(Tansley Reads Rating: 50%)

 

Icebreaker

 

Have you ever been tempted to steal something?

 

Questions

 

1.  How is Willie Sutton an atypical criminal, unlike those more commonly found in gangster movies and noir novels?

 

2.  Why did Willie need to re-visit his life history in chronological order before he would talk about it?

 

3.  For good or ill, how did growing up in Irish Town shape Willie?

[What did he learn from the neighborhood code of honor? From seeing his parents struggle financially? How did his abuse at the hands of his brothers forever alter the trajectory of his life? What role does Daddo, a relatively minor character, play in Willie’s development and later life?]

4.  Discuss Willie’s best friends, Eddie and Happy. What do they provide for Willie, and what do they cost him? How do they mirror his brothers?

5.  Sutton tells Reporter and Photographer that the “real hero” of the 1969 moon landing was Mike Collins, the one astronaut who never set foot on the lunar surface. What does Sutton mean? In what ways does this remark open a window into Willie’s worldview?

6.  Why does Moehringer identify some of the characters by a description rather than by naming them i.e. Right Guard, Left Guard, Reporter, Photographer, Shrink and yet names others.

 

7.  Willie flatly claims: “Money. Love. There’s not a problem that isn’t created by one or the other. And there’s not a problem that can’t be solved by one or the other.” Do you agree?

8.  What do we learn about Willie through his interactions with Wingy?

9.  While at Eastern State, Willie receives an off-the-cuff but elaborate diagnosis from the prison psychiatrist (pg. 241). Do you agree with the doctor? Is he too harsh? Too soft? Is it possible the doctor is the only person who ever sees Willie for what he really is?

10.  Sutton seems struck and slightly bothered by the notion that he’s not a hero but an antihero. Which does he seem to you—hero or antihero? Or neither?

11.  Willie argues that to live in society, to survive, each of us must take something away from somebody. Each of us must rob. Is he being glib, or does he make a valid point?

12.  Which version of the novel’s love story do you believe—the one Willie remembers or the one Kate heard from her grandmother?

 

13.  The author chooses not to end Sutton’s story at the end of his day in the spotlight with Reporter and Photographer, but rather, he chooses to show us the banality of the remainder of his life. Why?

 

 14:  Does it bother you when a book fictionalizes a real story instead of following just the known facts to tell the story?

 

15. Quick round: What did you think of the book? Is there anything you want to discuss that we missed?