Books

Reading Notes

1. The three cases that open Case Histories are at first quite separate, and leave you wondering how Atkinson is going to pull it all together into one story. Discuss whether she is successful in doing this – and how.
2. The three cases that open Case Histories are at first quite separate, and leave you wondering how Atkinson is going to pull it all together into one story. Discuss whether she is successful in doing this – and how.
3. Jackson believes ‘that his job was to help people be good rather than punish them for being bad’. Do you think he is a moral character, and how do you feel the revelation of the tragedy in his own past illuminates his actions in the novel?
4. To Jackson, it seems as if everyone he encounters has lost someone or something. One of Kate Atkinson’s recurrent themes is that of lost children. In spite of her wicked sense of humour, she creates an overwhelming sense of tension in the novel. Is this theme effective because it speaks directly to the lost child deep inside every one of us?