1. Dr. Dintenfass and Elise have a very close relationship. Mrs. Dintenfass feels that it is too close. Toward the end of the novel, when Elise and her father are in Maine but before her mother joins them, Elise comments about her father and her, "I felt we were like some elderly couple, married fifty years." How healthy is their relationship?

2. While June is hospitalized, Nate and Elise go to Maine for a vacation.

Nate has the telephone number at the house they rent changed, and the new number is unlisted, so that June cannot reach them by telephone. Is this a wise thing that Nate does? What does it reveal about his attitude toward June? To what unexpected events does it lead?

3. Older Men is especially harsh in its dealing with psychiatrists and psychiatric treatment. Why? Certainly, as Klein's biographers suggest, her relationship to...