1. In In the Blink of God’s Eye, how are the wolves, rumored to be roaming the streets of Washington, D.C. symbolic of Ruth’s loneliness?
2. In Spanish Morning, why is it important to the narrator that her mother speaks
Spanish every morning?
3. In Resurrecting Methuselah, Anita buys a bagful of the candy she used to love as a child, but the taste isn’t as satisfying as she remembers. How is the candy a metaphor for her marriage?
4. Caesar looks at the quarter in his hand.
“It was a rather old one, 1967, but shiny enough. Life had been kind to it.”
How does this quarter pertain to the plot of Old Boys, Old Girls?
5. Hagar was the woman cast out by
Abraham, and the Bible’s first slave.
If all of the characters are descendants of
Hagar, or slaves, how does the immigrant woman, who dies muttering in Yiddish, fit into the lead story, All Aunt Hagar’s
Children?
6. What does the road symbolize in
A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a
Downtown in Peru?
7. In Root Worker, how does Glynnis, a woman firmly rooted in modern science, finally come to terms with her mother’s nontraditional healing?
8. In Common Law, Amy witnesses
Miss Georgia being beaten and thrown down a flight of stairs by Kenyon.
Why do you think Amy has recurring nightmares about Miss Georgia, instead of Kenyon, coming after her?
9. In Adam Robinson Acquires Grandparents
and a Little Sister, what is the significance of the hymns and why does Adam cry when he hears them?
10. Where does
LaVerne go and why in
The Devil Swims
Across the
Anacostia River?
Frederick Douglass Bridge Spans
Anacostia River. To see more
D.C. images, visit dclibrary.org to access AP Images.
11. Is Roxanne blindsided in other ways beyond the physical in Blindsided?
12. In what ways is Horace a rich man in
A Rich Man?
13. In Bad Neighbors, who are the bad neighbors and why?
14. Edward P. Jones saves Tapestry for his last story. How do tapestries and Jones’s own body of work relate? How are tapestries a metaphor for the entire African-American experience?
15. Why do you think so many of Jones’s characters are young children?
More great programs and access to online resources @ dclibrary.org/dcreads.
IN THE LI
BOOK
BR AR Y OF CONGRES S

This is a collection of fourteen short stories that describe what life was like for African
Americans migrating to and growing up in Washington, D.C. during the 20 th century.
The characters suffer burdens from families, society and themselves. Aunt Hagar’s children are a tenacious lot. They work tirelessly, dream of better lives and struggle to combat obstacles that stand in their way.
Available in book, large print, digital
(Adobe ePub, PDF, HTML, Kindle, MP3, Overdrive
Listen, eBook) and sound recording.
Edward P. Jones was born in 1950 in Arlington,
VA. He received a Master in Fine Arts from the
University of Virginia in 1981. All Aunt Hagar’s
Children was published in 2006 and nominated for the PEN/Faulkner award in 2007. In 2010,
Jones won the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the art of the short story.
Other published works include Lost in the
City (1992) and The Known World (2003).
Mapping Segregation in Washington, D. C.
Tuesday | Oct. 20, 7 p.m.
Shepherd Park (Juanita E. Thornton) Library
7420 Georgia Ave. NW 20012
Tuesday | Oct. 27, 7 p.m.
Chevy Chase Library
5625 Connecticut Ave. NW 20015
Come learn why many of D.C.’s “historically black” neighborhoods were once exclusively white, and how more recent shifts in the city’s racial identity have been shaped by this history.
Panel: DC in the 50s
Tuesday | Nov. 3, 6:30 p.m.
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
901 G St NW 20001
Georgetown University American History
Professor Maurice Jackson and native
Washingtonians Rev. Sandra Butler-Truesdale and James Bennett will discuss the life and culture of African Americans in Washington,
D.C. in the 1950’s. Hosted and moderated by
DC Public Library Special Collections.
Folger Theatre: District Merchants
Thursday | Nov. 5, 7 p.m.
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
901 G St NW 20001
District Merchants, commissioned by Folger
Theatre, written and directed by Aaron Posner, is a variation on The Merchant of Venice, set among the Black and Jewish populations in post-Civil War D.C. This is a reading of a work in progress that will be on stage
May 31–July 3, 2016.