1. Discuss the meaning inherent in the title of the novel.

2. Compare this novel with others which treat the problems of alcohol and the social as well as personal destruction it causes.

3. Does the extremely dark nature of this fiction have meaning beyond a personal one for an author who was dying of her disease?

4. Metalious depicts a very bleak view of male/female relations in this book. What does it say about gender relations in general?

5. This novel is the one most often cited by those who wish to write about the French-Canadian aspects of Metalious' background. How is this novel ethnic in nature?

6. Unlike her other more successful books, Peyton Place and Return to Peyton Place, the prose quality of this novel is excessively restrained. How does that affect the reading of the work?

7. What other major themes does this novel raise that perhaps were...