They Left Us Everything, Plum Johnson

They Left Us Everything

By Plum Johnson

(Tansley Reads Rating: 78%)

 

Icebreaker

(Everyone was invited to bring a memento to the meeting). Describe what is the significance of your memento to you. 

 

Questions

 

1. As Plum is beginning to take on the task of sorting and putting order to the home she says – “how hard can it be? I can buy garbage bags”. Later when she is getting ready to catalogue items and have them evaluated she says – “how hard can it be? I can take pictures”. What projects have you approached with the attitude how hard can it be….?

 

2.  Plum says “it’s how you’re taught to treat something that gives it value”.  What things in the house, of little intrinsic value, did this apply to?

3.  How would you characterize the relationship between Plum’s mother and father, as Plum recalls it?  How did their personalities mesh and how did they clash?  What compromises and circumstances enabled their marriage to endure?  How was each a product of his or her time?

 

4.  In the end, how did Plum’s understanding of her parents—particularly her mother—become transformed over the course of cataloging and purging her childhood home?  How did Plum’s self-knowledge also change and grow?

 

5. Why does Plum begin to feel so creative in her old house when once it was stifling to her?

 

6.  Do you think that this ultra-creative, perhaps bohemian, family had a more interesting legacy than most? On pg. 278 we find that Plum’s mother used to say “Everybody is interesting – so long as you ask the right questions!”  What’s the most interesting life story you’ve heard in response to a single question you’ve asked?

7.  On pg. 91 Plum discussed the value of having “other mothers”.  These might be friends with different interests that widen your horizons, or who bring different perspectives to something that is of interest to both of you. How have you benefitted from having “other” mothers?

 

8.  Do you think parents should weed their personal effects before death or save them (warts and all) so that their can children learn about their parents after their parents are gone?

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