I’m currently reading the book Five Wives by Joan Thomas, and I have a few questions to ask:

1. What are your thoughts on the love scenes between Nate and Marj Saint (p. 145-146) and Jim and Betty Elliot (p. 283-284)? Do you think they served a purpose in molding some of the characters (ex. Rachel Saint) and their underlying emotions?

2. What does “Every night she [Betty] lies down in the sheets where they [she and Jim] partook of a feast of delights“ (p. 284) mean? What is the action that is taking place in this statement?

3. In the following passage:

“They’re at it, Nate and his bride, Nate and the curly-haired Cyclops, they’re riding the bedsprings, panting with one voice, panting, grunting, moaning (hard work, the making of a saint!), huh, huh, huh, huh, huh. She [Rachel] stands still, skewered by the noise. If she had a willie, she’d lift it and piss on the floor. Just here, against their closed door. The boys did that sometimes outside her bedroom. One winter the whole house stank of piss.
They yelp like foxes and fall silent. A quick business when you think about it. She waits a beat. “I hope to God it was worth it,” she calls into the crack of the door. A startled gasp, an angry shout, and she turns and strides down the hall and into the bathroom” (p. 145-146).

What are the actions that are taking place in this passage?