Description: THE MAD COOK OF PYMATUNINGA Novel by Christopher Lehmann-HauptQuestions and Topics for Discussion1. How does the author set the stage, right from the opening pages ofThe Mad Cook of Pymatuning,for the shocking events that will take place?2. Discuss what it is about Camp Seneca that has always made the place seem so special to Jerry. What role have Win and Chief Wahoo played in Jerry's emotional life, and how do you think Chief Wahoo's absence and Win's delayed arrival have contributed to Jerry's unease?3. "Looking back nearly a lifetime later, I realize now that I had an instant foreboding of how truly horrific that summer of 1952 would be," Jerry explains to the reader. Discuss how the added perspective of hindsight adds to or detracts from your reading experience?4. Talk about Woody's penchant for surprising his campers with challenging and scary twists on routine activities. Do you agree or disagree with his conviction that most children grow from such challenges and emerge better equipped to face real life? If so, why? Discuss how it might feel to send a child of yours to such a camp.5. Viewing the first night's staged campfire horror show through his frightened nine-year-old half-brother's eyes, Jerry sees the "joke" as more sadistic than funny. "If you're weaklings, life will break you anyway in the long run," Woody insists. If parents of the campers knew about the sink-or-swim approach, designed to test each youngster's mettle, do you think they would approve or object? Explain if you think fathers would likely have a different view than mothers, or if it would matter if their child was a boy or a girl.6. In addition to being a tale of terror,The Mad Cook of Pymatuningis a provocative coming-of-age story about a seventeen-year-old narrator poised on the threshold of adulthood. What conflicting emotions must Jerry confront over the course of the summer -- and how does dealing with them help him to grow up? In what way does his troubled relationship with his divorced parents affect his relationship with his nine-year-old half brother, Peter?7. Discuss Jerry's relationship with his stepmother. Both Jerry and Karla remember the wrestling incident from two years ago that provoked his father's fury and caused them to come to blows as something completely innocent, but was it? In her letters, Karla writes: "Are there any pretty girls for you? Please don't let them steal your heart away from me!" Are these merely the extravagant words of a demonstrative woman whose English is not her first language, or is Karla, either consciously or unconsciously, being flirtatious with her stepson?8. Discuss your opinions of Jerry's father. He appears cruelly indifferent to his own son, but we only get to see him through Jerry and Karla's eyes. In what way do you think the relationship between Jerry and his father has been affected by his dad's remarriage? Do you think the author is merely painting a picture of one distant and unloving father, or do you think Jerry's father's estrangement from his first son is meant to represent one of the casualties of divorce?9. Why do you think Woody has replaced Chief Wahoo with Buck Silverstone? Why does Woody think Buck "is going to make Seneca's Indian program richer than it's ever been before"?10. What did you learn about American Indian customs and history inThe Mad Cook of Pymatuning?How did the Native American lore in the novel enrich your reading experience?11. This campfire horror yarn/coming-of-age story has been compared with William Golding'sLord of the Flies-- only here it is the adults not the youths who run amok. Discuss what other novels or movies come to mind when readingThe Mad Cook of Pymatuning.In what ways are they similar -- or different? If you were called upon to cast a movie version ofThe Mad Cook of Pymatuning,who would you choose to play Buck? Why? How would you cast some of the other

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