A Reader’s Guide

“A stunning debut novel from a very talented writer.”— Telegraph (London)

“Beautifully structured… Speaks directly to the heart.”— Globe and Mail (Toronto)

MARINER BOOKSHOUGHTON MIFFL IN COMPANY

ISBN 0-618-10927-7 • $13.00 • 384 pp. • 5 1/2 x 8 1/4

WINNER OF THE CANADIAN BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATIONFIRST-TIME AUTHOR OF THE YEAR AWARD

FOR DISCUSSION

We hope the following questions will stimulate discussion for readinggroups and provide a deeper understanding of Kit's Law for every reader.

1. How do young Kit’s lonely games and fantasies help her cope withthe world and her own disadvantages? In what ways are thosegames and fantasies similar to and, at the same time, different fromthose of children her age everywhere? What life-enabling gamesand fantasies do others—and you—engage in?

KIT’S LAW“A cast of characters that fall into the category of unforgettable.”

— Sunday Business Post (Dublin)

“If you were to perch on a treetop and look down on Fox Cove, you wouldsee a gully.” And near the edge of that gully you would see “a grey, weath-er-beaten house, its windows opened to the sea, and its walls slanted back,as if beaten into the hillside by the easterly winds gusting off the Atlantic…And if you were to hop onto a windowsill and look inside that house, youwould see three women.” Those three women are the outspoken LizzyPitman (“I’ve had all the preachin’ me stomach can take for one mornin’!”),her retarded daughter Josie, and Josie’s twelve-year-old daughter Kit. Kit is both narrator and central character of this powerful debut novel froma gifted Canadian storyteller.

In the beginning, isolation is all Kit knows. She, Josie, and Lizzy livejust outside Haire’s Hollow, a small Newfoundland fishing community.Kit’s isolation is compounded by the mystery surrounding her illegitimatebirth and by the scorn that the self-righteous Reverend Ropson and othersthrow at her and Josie. Josie herself, oblivious of the villagers’ derision,often runs wild along the beach. Truth be told, Josie goes running whenev-er a car or truck horn sounds. Lizzy does her utmost to protect both Kit andJosie from the disdain of the more pious townsfolk; but when Lizzy diessuddenly, Kit and her childlike mother are left vulnerable to the forces thatthreaten to tear them apart.

For a while it appears that the wise Doctor Hodgins can make certainthat Kit has the space and time to mature and care for her mother. But fate,especially in the person of Reverend Ropson’s defiant son, intervenes; anda wrenching story ensues. With exceptional grace of style and command oflanguage, Morrissey renders the deeply rooted links between daughter andmother, Kit’s passage from girlhood to womanhood, the surprising bless-ings and costs of love, and one bold and steadfast person’s confrontationwith life itself. A novel of almost mythical power, Kit’s Law—in ThomasKenneally’s words—“exists in the valley of its own saying and, in thedirectness of its tone, establishes its own authority.”

www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com 1 of 3 Copyright (c) 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, All Rights Reserved

FOR DISCUSSION

We hope the following questions will stimulate discussion for readinggroups and provide a deeper understanding of Kit's Law for every reader.

1. How do young Kit’s lonely games and fantasies help her cope withthe world and her own disadvantages? In what ways are thosegames and fantasies similar to and, at the same time, different fromthose of children her age everywhere? What life-enabling gamesand fantasies do others—and you—engage in?

2. “Timin’s everything,” Lizzy pronounces, “but sometimes, ’tis onlythe hand of God that can save ye.” Are Lizzy’s, Josie’s, and Kit’sfates the result of timing, luck, divine providence, or personal choiceand action?

3. In what ways does Morrissey portray conflicts between individualsand the community? What characters take it upon themselves tospeak for the community, and which resist community intrusion intotheir lives? What are the motivations and purposes of each group?

4. When Mrs. Haynes offers to bake bread for Kit and Josie, DoctorHodgins exclaims, “It’s in the hearts of people like you where mira-cles are born, and where would we be without miracles?” What “mir-acles” are born in Haire’s Hollow, and in whose hearts? How arelives of individuals changed in consequence?

5. What happens when everyone, to use Sid’s terms, “starts thinkingthat theirs is the only colour” through which to see the world? Whatinstances are there in Kit’s Law of characters seeing and behaving onthe basis of a monochrome world? What are the restrictive conse-quences, for oneself and others, of seeing the world through only onecolor?

6. Doctor Hodgins asks Kit whether it is sacrifice or fear that keeps herin the house by the gully. Which would you say it is? Or is it some-thing else entirely, something that Kit cannot yet articulate, nor thedoctor—for all his perceptiveness—recognize?

7. “Fear, shame, it was hard to tell which was causing the trembling inmy voice,” Kit comments, following Shine’s killing of Pirate. Whatkinds of fear and shame, both real and false, occur in Kit’s Law, andhow do they affect the characters’ individual and group behavior?What enables some to overcome fear and shame?

8. What people and events most influence Kit’s progression from acowed, dependent twelve-year-old to a responsible, decisive youngwoman capable of caring for both herself and her mother? To whatextent is that progression believable and convincing, and to whatextent implausible?

9. After Josie kills Shine, Sid counters Kit’s fear of God’s law and theuse that Reverend Ropson makes of it: “Isn’t that what we all do,sometimes? Take God’s law and make it ours? . . . But there are otherlaws, God’s laws too, I suppose . . . But they aren’t so clearly writ-ten.” What “laws” govern the behavior of Morrissey’s characters?Which of these can be clearly seen as “God’s laws,” and which“aren’t so clearly written”? What attitude toward these laws does Kitadopt, and what kind of law does she create for herself?

10. When did you first think that you knew who Kit’s father was?What ambiguities are clarified by this knowledge? What furtherironies—especially those created by the conflict between what weknow and what Kit, Sid, and others don’t yet know—ensue? Howdo those ironies add to the story’s drama?

11. A few weeks after Sid’s trial, Doctor Hodgins exclaims, “We’reweak! Broken! Still answering to the truths of our youth.” Whatdoes he mean by “still answering to the truths of our youth”? Inwhat ways do we all eventually answer to the truths of our youth?What does Kit later mean when she says of Doctor Hodgins: “Aman with learning can’t lay claim to the youthful truths that he hadtalked about that evening sitting by the sea. So it was mine that heclung to, and Sid’s”?

12. Telling Kit about her grandmother’s refusal to permit Kit’s adop-tion by Elsie Hodgins, the doctor says that Lizzy was right to sayno: “She had love to give you, and love’s a better guarantee of hap-piness than someone else’s need to rescue.” How does Morrisseyillustrate this truth? What instances are there of a “need to rescue,”and how does love of some kind contend with each? Does lovealways get the better of the need to rescue?

13. Why doesn’t Doctor Hodgins reveal to Sid and Kit the secret ofKit’s paternity, or otherwise attempt to prevent their marriage? Towhat degree should he be held accountable for the pain and suf-fering caused by their discovery that the Reverend Ropson is Kit’sfather?

14. Having found Sid at the orphanage in St. John’s, Kit has a suddenvision of “one of his cursed Gods” and a sense of “a law that noteven legends could do away with.” What is that law, and why can’teven legends do away with it? In what ways might legends be ableto eradicate other laws?

15. What does Kit mean when she says to Sid, on the bench in St.John’s, “I’m sayin’ you’re part of my law—the law that governsme. And Josie”? How would you describe that law? Why might ittake precedence—or not—over every other law alluded to in thenovel?

16. As they sit together on the altar steps in the church, DoctorHodgins says to Kit, “There’s more than happy, Kit. There’s peace.And pride. And those things measure good.” Do you agree or dis-agree with him, or do you think that his words are a panacea? Hegoes on to tell Kit, “You must feel proud, knowing you walkedaway from what you wanted most in the world, all for a greaterthing.” What do you think that “greater thing” might be? For Kit,is it worth walking away from what she wanted most?

KIT’S LAW“A cast of characters that fall into the category of unforgettable.”

— Sunday Business Post (Dublin)

“If you were to perch on a treetop and look down on Fox Cove, you wouldsee a gully.” And near the edge of that gully you would see “a grey, weath-er-beaten house, its windows opened to the sea, and its walls slanted back,as if beaten into the hillside by the easterly winds gusting off the Atlantic…And if you were to hop onto a windowsill and look inside that house, youwould see three women.” Those three women are the outspoken LizzyPitman (“I’ve had all the preachin’ me stomach can take for one mornin’!”),her retarded daughter Josie, and Josie’s twelve-year-old daughter Kit. Kit is both narrator and central character of this powerful debut novel froma gifted Canadian storyteller.

In the beginning, isolation is all Kit knows. She, Josie, and Lizzy livejust outside Haire’s Hollow, a small Newfoundland fishing community.Kit’s isolation is compounded by the mystery surrounding her illegitimatebirth and by the scorn that the self-righteous Reverend Ropson and othersthrow at her and Josie. Josie herself, oblivious of the villagers’ derision,often runs wild along the beach. Truth be told, Josie goes running whenev-er a car or truck horn sounds. Lizzy does her utmost to protect both Kit andJosie from the disdain of the more pious townsfolk; but when Lizzy diessuddenly, Kit and her childlike mother are left vulnerable to the forces thatthreaten to tear them apart.

For a while it appears that the wise Doctor Hodgins can make certainthat Kit has the space and time to mature and care for her mother. But fate,especially in the person of Reverend Ropson’s defiant son, intervenes; anda wrenching story ensues. With exceptional grace of style and command oflanguage, Morrissey renders the deeply rooted links between daughter andmother, Kit’s passage from girlhood to womanhood, the surprising bless-ings and costs of love, and one bold and steadfast person’s confrontationwith life itself. A novel of almost mythical power, Kit’s Law—in ThomasKenneally’s words—“exists in the valley of its own saying and, in thedirectness of its tone, establishes its own authority.”

Kit Law Guide (legal) 2 7/23/01 12:01 PM Page 2

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Donna Morrissey now lives inHalifax, Nova Scotia, but was bornin The Beaches, a small isolated vil-lage on Newfoundland’s northwestcoast. She left The Beaches whenshe was sixteen and struck out acrossCanada, working odd jobs fromNewfoundland to northern Albertaand marrying. Eventually drawnback to Newfoundland, she enrolledat Memorial University in St. John’s,and—by now the mother of two chil-dren—got divorced. After graduating with a bachelor of social workdegree, Morrissey moved to Halifax and—in her late thirties—beganwriting short stories. She has adapted two of her stories into screen-plays, both of which won the Atlantic Film Festival Award. Kit’s Law,Morrissey’s first novel, is the winner of the Canadian BooksellersAssociation First-Time Author of the Year Award for 2000 and hasbeen shortlisted for the Atlantic Fiction Award, the Chapters/Books inCanada First Novel Award, and other prizes.

DONNA MORRISSEY

A Reader’s Guide

“A stunning debut novel from a very talented writer.”— Telegraph (London)

“Beautifully structured… Speaks directly to the heart.”— Globe and Mail (Toronto)

MARINER BOOKSHOUGHTON MIFFL IN COMPANY

MARINER BOOKS/HOUGHTON MIFFL IN COMPANY

ISBN 0-618-10927-7 • $13.00 • 384 pp. • 5 1/2 x 8 1/4

For additional copies of this Reader’s Guide (while supplies last) please contact your Houghton Mifflin representative or call

Houghton Mifflin at (800) 225-3362.

Or you can print available Mariner Books Reader’s Guides from our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com

ISBN 0-618-16671-8 (pack of 10 Reader’s Guides)TITLE # 6-96635

Produced by Hal Hager & Associates, Somerville, NJAuthor photo: Paul Toman

WINNER OF THE CANADIAN BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATIONFIRST-TIME AUTHOR OF THE YEAR AWARD

I started my third short story, but I was curtailed by the brilliant writings ofCarl Jung, Robert Johnson, and Joseph Campbell. They changed my per-spective on life and gave me a foundation upon which to write. I learnedhow we all live within myth, and one of the keys to good writing—and goodliving—is to find that myth within a character, or ourselves, then bridge it toeveryday life. And to be accepting of the directions the pen, or our lives,take. And as if to test my personal abilities to accept such trials, Divinitypresented me with the most perplexing and devastating aspect of all myths.My mother, the center of my existence, was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Each day for a year we nurtured each other; me, Mom, Dad, my broth-ers, and my sisters. And each day of that year, I wrote. My mother lay on abed beside me, and the third story, which had started out about an oldwoman and twenty-five cats, stretched itself into a novel about an oldwoman and a girl called Kit. Each day I stumbled and faltered over charac-ters and story line, and each day my mom argued against happy endings.And sometimes when I became lost within a feeling, I’d turn to her and asksomething like “Mom, remember when you used to buff the down off thebirds before cooking them—how was it that you used to hold them so gen-tly?” And I’d write her words as she spoke them into Kit’s thoughts.

Finally, Kit’s Law was written. And I, my mother, and my sisters pack-aged up eight manuscripts and sent them out to the top publishing houses inCanada. We were courted by one of them for three months. While we wait-ed, our mother’s health began deteriorating at a frightful speed. It becamemore urgent for her that this book be published, and a future secured for me.Each day, she was the first to send a youngster to the mailbox, looking forthe acceptance letter.

Divinity is astute. In its brilliance it turned my mother’s pain for herselfonto me, and mine onto her. And in this unity, we held on to each other asliving crutches as we walked the final yard of my mother’s earthly journey.Sunday, at two P.M., she departed. Monday, at nine A.M., Penguin Canadacalled. My mother had plied the hand of God, and I was now a writer.

DONNA MORRISSEY ON KIT’S LAW

I met this fascinating woman, a Jungian of sorts, who enraptured mymind with tales of skeleton women walking the floors of frozen oceans,and of little match girls too lazy to remove themselves from the cold ofthe night to escape their wintry graves. That we were of our own mak-ing and each had a unique story to tell were morals my mother hadalways preached. Yet despite the stories and teachings I discovered inthe hundreds of books she managed to procure for me on our isolatedstrip of beach, it never once occurred to me to pick up a pen and write.And so it came as quite a surprise when my mentor/friend asked “Canyou write the way you talk? Surely you are a writer!”

What flattery! And wouldn’t my mother be proud! Every morn-ing I arose at six, sat with the homeless in a downtown café, writing,writing, writing, until it felt like my pen had taken on a life of itsown. My brother became a guy called Luke, my sister became a girlcalled Maggie, my dog became a cat named Pirate. And I becameone with them all. Thus it happened that I fell into my own myth.

I relocated to Halifax and worked seven hours a day developingwriting skills. My first two short stories I converted to screenplays,and both won the Atlantic Film Festival Writing Competition. Then

Kit Law Guide (legal) 2 7/23/01 12:01 PM Page 1

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