THE JOURNEYS OF JOHN AND JULIA IN CHAPTER ONE: GENESIS

by Aurelia Xander

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. How does Julia transform her feelings of powerlessness over her mother’s cancelling cheerleader camp into something more positive?
   

2. Who do you think Julia blames more for the divorce, her mom or her dad? Why?
   

3. Why do you think The Twenty-Two (other than Regina, that is) were in an uproar over Regina’s initiating a reality breach for Julia?
   

4. Have you ever experienced a déjà vu? What do you think it means?
   

5. John sees Julia’s grandmother, Amelia Livingston, as a kind lady who bakes him cookies and cares about what’s important to him.
   
   Julia’s mom, Elizabeth, sees Amelia as a judgmental mom who cares more about baking cookies than about what’s important to Elizabeth.
   
   Which is the correct perception of Amelia: John’s or Elizabeth’s? Could both of them be true, or could neither of them be true?
   

6. How do you account for John’s sense of excitement at Grandpa Livingston’s ghostly visitation as opposed to Julia’s terror?
   

7. Why do you think Julia puts on her “arctic cool” face when she is about to see John for the first time in a year?
   

8. On their road trip, Victor and Julia pass an abandoned barn, and Julia has a realization:
   
   “The building looked so two-dimensional that it could have been a piece of paper, a fold-out greeting card carelessly dropped by some giant being, or a model in one of those cheesy, easy-to-store cardboard nativity sets Kellie’s mom put up for the holidays. … A misapprehension procured by the mind filled with meaning from memory … is that what Victor meant? That the world of form was nothing but an ocean of possibilities with the mind constantly checking from memory until it comes up with something that makes sense?”
   
   What do you think that Julia has understood about human perception?
   

9. How could it be possible for Victor to drive Julia 3,000 miles in a day?
   

10. When Constellato refers to Julia’s call to her father as “a call that has no origin” and that this could only be possible ” if the interaction happens in hyper-communication space,” what do you think he means?
    

11. Why does the thought of such a phone call make Niem Vidalgo Oten so upset that he’s glad his minions cannot see his face at that moment?
    

12. Is Victor real, or is he part of a dream that Julia is having in the forest? What leads you to either conclusion?