Introduction:
Originally published to international acclaim and the basis for the beloved film starring Whoopi Goldberg, Joseph Olshan’s prize-winning novel charts the profound, rare friendship between a wise Jamaican woman named Clara and David, a twelve-year-old boy adrift in the wake of his parents’ broken marriage. As the two grow closer, she brings him into her special world of patois and Jamaican beauty parlors and shadowy alliances, and he comes to realize that in her native country Clara has left behind a mystery, which he grows determined to unveil. Heralded as a classic, Clara’s Heart is at once a moving and comical tribute to unconventional love.
Questions For Discussion:
1. Do you think the relationship between Clara and David is one that people from many different cultures can relate to? What is so sad about this love that doesn’t often speak its name?
2. Clara’s Heart was published more than twenty years ago. Do you think the portrait of divorce and its affect upon children is still accurate?
3. Both parents in the novel are pulled away from David by circumstances in their lives after their separation. Would you say they are irresponsible? Do you agree that some couples shouldn’t have children?
4. Do you think by being so secretive Clara contributed to David’s fascination with the contents of her red suitcase?
5. Do you think Clara was reckless by encouraging the closeness with David? Do you think her concern for his well-being was harmful to him.
6. Clara’s patois is the novel’s poetry. Did you find that in enhanced the novel? And did any of its phrases create any confusion?
7. Clara’s great secret, the one alluded in the book’s opening, is finally revealed at the very end. A very famous writer told the author that the book could have worked well without the final revelation, which she found melodramatic. Would you agree with that, or do you think the revelation added suspense and intrigue to the book?
About the Author:
Joseph Olshan is the award-winning author of nine novels, the most recent of which, Cloudland (2012) was hailed by the New York Times: "Joseph Olshan has stepped up and hit one for the home team. The bracing clarity of his prose…observes the destructive impact [the] killings have on this isolated region.” His work has been translated into sixteen languages.
