Discuss these concepts in relation to the characters in the novel, including Randy Creeley, Iris, Barbara Anik, William Bramer, Aggie, and Molly. Do you think Molly feels absolved of responsibility at the end of the novel, or does she still have lingering feelings of “What if”?
Do you think Roland Creeley erred in lying to his children and telling them their mother had died? Do you fault Alice Creeley for not telling her husband that his first wife had stopped by to observe the children? Are there times when withholding information is ultimately more important than sharing it? How do we decide?
We see Randy Creeley’s mother through the eyes of various characters: her first husband, the woman who replaced her, her children, and Molly. How do they view her? How do you view her? Is she a sad woman who couldn’t handle motherhood and fled from responsibility, or is she a self-absorbed narcissist who has rationalized her behavior? Do you think she loved her children? Do you think she is aggrieved by Randy’s death? Does society offer viable choices for women who recognize that they have made a mistake in taking on motherhood?
Molly reflects that Aggie didn’t confide in her about her plan to obtain the tape because she feared that Molly would have tried to stop her. Does Molly withhold information from others for the same reason? Is the concept of “not confiding” a convention of mysteries?
Who is the real Aggie? Do you think she was romantically attracted to Randy, or was that his perception? Do you think she broke off their friendship because she didn’t want to hurt her parents?
Molly is shocked and hurt when she learns that Aggie didn’t tell her everything. Do we have the right to expect our close friends to share everything with us? Are there boundaries to friendship?
Follow the trail of the red thread that Molly gave Aggie. In a sense, did it provide protection?
Do you fault Iris for not coming forth when Aggie was murdered? Can you understand why Randy didn’t tell the police what he knew about Aggie’s murder?
Anthony Horton is a self-made, resilient man who sincerely tried to help others. How do you reconcile the philanthropist who founded Rachel’s Tent with the man who killed Randy Creeley? Do we sometimes justify our actions and look at the “greater” good?
How did your perception of and attitude toward Randy Creeley change throughout the book? Do his final actions redeem him? Are we judged by the totality of our lives or defined by certain acts?
Other characters in the book attempt to either rein-vent or redeem themselves. Are they successful?
Grave Endings deals with the subject of what is predestined—or “bashert,” as Bubbie G would say. At the same time it raises the concept of free will. Do you see a conflict between the two? Do you think a person’s life is like a video, as Molly’s father suggests?
If you enjoyed Rochelle Krich’s Grave Endings,
you won’t want to miss
her new Molly Blume novel
NOW YOU SEE ME . . .
from Ballantine Books.
Please read on for an exciting preview . . .
ON A SUNDAY MORNING IN NOVEMBER, A DAY BEFORE the Monday Hadassah Bailor never came home, her alarm rang at five-fifty. She shut off the alarm within seconds, but her older sister, Aliza, who had returned late from a date, groaned, C’mon, Dass, even before she saw the clock radio’s green liquid crystal numbers, eerily bright in the dark room. Like cat’s eyes, Aliza would say, though that was probably an afterthought inspired by the Harry Potter novel lying on the nightstand between the two beds.
Aliza jammed a pillow over her head. Later, with some prodding, when insignificant details assumed urgency, she remembered hearing the splash of water as Hadassah, using the white plastic tub and two-handled laver that she’d kept at her bedside for most of her eighteen years, rinsed her hands and eyes before she murmured her waking prayers. Also with some prodding, Aliza was able to recall the hum of the computer and the staccato clicking of Hadassah’s fingernails on the keyboard, and the muffled drone behind the closed door of the bathroom where Hadassah dried her long, curly strawberry-blond hair, which she liked to wear loose but had secured with a black velvet scrunchy.
At seven-forty Hadassah roused her three younger brothers. She helped Yonatan, the seven-year-old, find a tennis shoe and yarmulke, both wedged between the bunk bed and the wall. While they dressed, she put snacks into brown paper bags (she decorated Yonatan’s with a smiley face), which she handed the boys as they tore out the side door to their waiting car pool.
Hadassah put on a buttery-yellow cable-knit hooded sweater and a gray wool skirt that revealed a few inches of slim legs encased in gray tights too warm for what promised to be an unseasonably mild day. After prayers and breakfast (two rice cakes, sliced red pepper, a glass of nonfat milk), she returned to her computer, muting the volume in deference to her sister’s restless tossing. Two hours later she shut down the computer and went downstairs. She had slipped her black backpack, heavy with books, over her black quilted jacket and was hoisting the strap of her overnight bag, which, if anyone had checked, was packed with more than her school uniform and a change of underwear, when her mother, one hand stifling a yawn, padded into the kitchen.
Nechama Bailor didn’t think her daughter had seemed different that morning. “In a rush, maybe,” she said on reflection, “but teenage girls are always like that, aren’t they?” Nechama was almost certain Hadassah had kissed her good-bye.
“Dassie always kisses me before she leaves,” the mother said, using the present tense from habit and hope and touching her cheek gingerly, as though she didn’t want to disturb the airy brush of her daughter’s lips.
BY ROCHELLE KRICH
Where’s Mommy Now?
Till Death Do Us Part
Nowhere to Run
Speak No Evil
Fertile Ground
IN THE MOLLY BLUME SERIES
Blues in the Night
Dream House
Grave Endings
Now You See Me . . .
IN THE JESSE DRAKE SERIES
Fair Game
Angel of Death
Blood Money
Dead Air
Shadows of Sin
SHORT STORIES
“A Golden Opportunity”
Sisters in Crime 5
“Cat in the Act”
Feline and Famous
“Regrets Only”
Malice Domestic 4
“Widow’s Peak”
Unholy Orders
“You Win Some . . .”
Women Before the Bench
“Bitter Waters”
Criminal Kabbalah
Books published by The Random House Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1–800–733–3000.
Grave Endings is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2005 Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 2004 by Rochelle Majer Krich
Reading group guide copyright © 2005 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
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