Reader's Guide - Behind Closed Doors
- Jannie Fox is a complicated character who is relentless when it comes to fighting for other victims of abuse, and yet she refuses to see her own victimization. Colt Singer tells her she is hiding from life, and that is why she doesn’t recognize it. Do you think this is true, or is there some other reason that she doesn’t recognize herself as a victim?
- While she is fighting for justice for others, Jannie lies to herself and her family on a daily basis. While these are not serious lies, they ultimately build up until her pyramid of deceit tumbles down. How is this similar to Mike Holt’s pyramid of lies, and is one any less serious than the other?
- Colt Singer is a complicated man in a complicated society. He works to bring justice to people on a daily basis, yet the biggest injustices are those from the past, and ones he can’t right. How does this affect his relationship with Jannie?
- It seems that the biggest villains in Jannie’s life are her own expectations, and ultimately her own denials. What steps could she have taken years earlier to fix her problems, or were these problems unfixable?
- Part of Jannie’s problems stem from her upbringing in a repressive patriarchal society, and also her complicated relationship with her father. Do you believe that things would have been different for Jannie if her father had been more aggressive and take-charge at home, instead of letting Jannie’s mother run the home?
- It seems that Jannie’s father is the “reluctant” leader of their home, and in the end he bows under that pressure. Ultimately, that was also Mike’s fate, along with trying to live up to expectations he could never hope to achieve. Does Brian also fall victim to these expectations?
- Brian wanted to be something he never could be—Mormon royalty. The only way to achieve that was through birth, and yet he systematically set about destroying all those around him in an ill-fated attempt to build himself up. Was this an inbred mental illness, or something that beset him after being raised in the repressive Mormon society?
