Slow Dancing on Price's Pier (44 page)

A couple quick things: Price's Pier was inspired in part by Bowen's Wharf in Newport, Rhode Island. I've taken some liberties with geography (and with certain minor elements of scenes), but I've done my best to evoke the larger feel of that part of the city. FYI, I've also used the terms coffee shop and café interchangeably, though technically, they're two different things.

Finally, thanks to
all
readers: you give life to the books you love. I wanted to work the traditional closing lines of a Turkish story somewhere into this book. So, in closing:

1. Discuss some of the most pertinent themes of “The Coffee Diaries” and how they relate to Thea's life. How does the “story of coffee” intersect with Thea's story?

2. Thea has a long and somewhat complicated relationship with the Sorensens. While they are like family to her, do you think the way she has treated them—and the way they have treated her—has been completely acceptable? Discuss some of the difficulties that they've encountered in their relationship.

3. Garret's playboy ways have kept him from settling down. Do you think that he is hopeful for a second chance with Thea, perhaps even before he realizes it? Is the perfect veneer he's created for himself a shield to make up for the failure he believes he is, especially in love?

4. Do you think Thea was right to marry Jonathan for “comfort and refuge”? (p.143) Is compatibility without chemistry enough to make a happy marriage?

5. After the divorce, Thea has “an unsought opportunity—a second chance she didn't quite know she'd needed until now.” (p. 151) Discuss how this foreshadows her future encounter with Garret. Do you believe she was subconsciously seeking a second chance with him?

6. Thea's consistent advice to Irina in a bleak situation is that “it's going to be okay” (p.175), yet she seems to have difficulty believing that herself. Why do you think she has trouble following her own advice?

7. At one point, Thea describes her first romance as “One great, juvenile, operatic, and misplaced passion.” (p. 171) She regards her relationship with Jonathan as a more mature and responsible kind of love. Do you think there's a gap between young love and adult love? Does it show when Thea falls for Garret a second time, or is there no difference at all?

8. Thea's column preceding chapter 13 talks about how coffee is an acquired taste. (p. 219) How is this a parallel to her life, and what she is seeking now that she is divorced?

9. Do you think Garret was right to blame Thea for the fact that he lost his soccer scholarship and that his journey into adulthood didn't go as planned?

10. Do you think Thea and Garret's relationship, from the beginning when they dated secretively, was destined to fail? Did everything that happened from the time they broke up to the time her marriage dissolved need to take place in order for them to find what was there all along?

11. Thea's family has obviously always come first in her mind. Do you think she is a good mother despite the emotional turbulence her family suffers because of her love for Garret?

12. Thea has a desire to think things through before she acts. Do you think she is missing out on life because of her need to not act impulsively?

13. As a teen, Thea put a lot of importance on losing her virginity; only later do we learn that Garret does too. What caused their first attempt at lovemaking to fail?

14. Through all their difficulties, the Sorensens try to remain close to one another. Was Sue right to demand “enough is enough” and evict Thea from the family? Should she have put her foot down sooner? Or not at all?

15. Do you think Thea and Garret were being selfish in rekindling their love, or was it a chance they had to take? Why do you think it takes a tragedy for the family—particularly Jonathan—to accept that Garret and Thea's love is the real deal?