Reading Circle

Reading Group Questions

1. What meaning does the title Good Things I Wish You hold for the two main couples in the book?

2. Throughout the novel there is much speculation about the relationship between Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Do you think they consummated their relationship? Why or why not? Could they have just been good friends? What do you think accounted for their break?

3. Describe Clara’s relationship with Schumann and Brahms. How did each man view her? What was her significance to each and to their music?

4. Over the course of the novel, we learn of three men in Jeannette’s life: her piano teacher when she was a teenager, her husband Cal, and the elusive doctor, Hart. Compare and contrast the men and the relationship they shared with Jeannette. How do they compare to Clara’s relationships with her husband and her friend, Brahms?

5. Why do you think Jeannette’s piano teacher told her about Clara Schumann? For her sixteenth birthday he gave her a portrait of Clara at 35, telling her, “it would help her understand things about men and women most people don’t figure out until after it’s too late.” What advice was the piano teacher trying to convey to Jeannette?

6. Neither Jeannette nor Hart believe in coincidences. Do you? Why or why not?

7. Hart tells Jeannette that there are things about men and women that do not change and that men and women can never be friends. Examine the issue from both sides. Which character do you sympathize with more in terms of the question, Hart or L___.?

8. Passion versus rationality and freedom versus the bonds of commitment are two of the novel’s themes. Discuss these themes in the novel

9. How does desire fuel creativity throughout the book? Does contentedness stifle creativity? What did Clara desire? Brahms? Hart? Jeannette?

10. In the novel, the author imagines that Clara and Brahms consummate their love, an action that leads to their separation. Why do some people, like the character portrayed by Brahms, seem to prefer the chase to the prize? Have you known anyone like this?

11. Why do you think the author chose to include photos and excerpts from Clara and Brahms’s letters? Did the photos and excerpts add to your reading experience? How might the novel have been different without them?

12. Talk about Hart and Jeannette. What kind of couple do they make? Were you surprised at the turns their relationship takes? What attracts them to each other? Are they good together? Could marriage ever work between them?

13. Where you satisfied by the novel’s ending? Can work and art sustain us through our loneliness? Does it offer and solace and hope-fill a void? How so-and for how long?

14. While writing her book, Jeannette asks herself, “What could I take from the life of Clara Schumann as a working artist, living in the world today? As a mother? As somebody’s former wife? As somebody standing on the edge of what must be a whole new life?” How would you answer these questions? What lessons did you take from Clara’s life? What about Jeannette’s?