This reading group guide for Bomb Shelter includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book. Introduction From the bestselling author of I Miss You When I Blink and "writer of singular spark and delight" (Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times bestselling author) comes a poignant and powerful new memoir-in-essays that tackles the big questions of life, death, and existential fear with humor and hope. A lifelong worrier, Philpott always kept an eye out for danger, a habit that only intensified when she became a parent. But she looked on the bright side, too, believing that as long as she cared enough, she could keep her loved ones safe. Then, in the dark of one quiet, predawn morning, she woke abruptly to a terrible sound--and found her teenage son unconscious on the floor. In the aftermath of a crisis that darkened her signature sunny spirit, she wondered: If this happened, what else could happen? And how do any of us keep going when we can''t know for sure what''s coming next? Leave it to the writer whose critically acclaimed debut had us "laughing and crying on the same page" (NPR) to illuminate what it means to move through life with a soul made of equal parts anxiety and optimism (and while she''s at it, to ponder the mysteries of backyard turtles and the challenges of spatchcocking a turkey).

Hailed by the Washington Post as "Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr, and Laurie Colwin all rolled into one," Philpott returns in her distinctive voice to explore our protective instincts, the ways we continue to grow up long after we''re grown, and the limits--both tragic and hilarious--of the human body and mind. Topics and Questions for Discussion 1. Why do you think Mary Laura Philpott chose the essay "Shadows" to open her memoir? What themes in this piece echo throughout the rest of the book? 2. In "Hello from Upside Down," Mary Laura says that after her daughter was born, "Keeping her alive made me feel alive." Have you ever experienced an act of caretaking that made you feel more alive? 3. Mary Laura tends to move forward and backward through time in her storytelling. How does that movement through time give you more insight into her present-day concerns? 4. While Mary Laura tackles some very serious topics here, she also balances the mood often by striking a lighter tone and incorporating some more humorous stories.

What were some of the lines that made you laugh, and how did the blend of drama and comedy affect your reading experience? 5. The subtitle of this memoir is "Love, Time, and Other Explosives." What makes love and time so "explosive"? Where did you spot metaphorical "explosives" throughout the book? 6. The Philpott household has had an eclectic menagerie of animals over the years--from Frank the turtle, to dogs Woodstock and Eleanor Roosevelt, to an ill-fated pair of African dwarf water frogs. What elements of Mary Laura''s writing ensure the animals have as much personality on the page as the humans? 7. In "Seriously," Mary Laura tells us she was never a cheerleader (except for a two-week period in ninth grade), but she tries "to cheer for all sorts of things: books, art, animals, underdogs, people trying to figure themselves out, people toiling away at unglamorous work purely because they care and want to make a difference. (Go, scientists!) Few things cheer me up as much as giving a pep talk that cheers up someone else." Where in this memoir do you see Mary Laura acting as a cheerleader? Are there moments in this book that feel like pep talks? And do you also feel energized by cheering on others? 8.

"A hardening happens to human souls when we come to accept terrible things as normal," Mary Laura writes in "Worst-Case Scenario." "Sometimes I wonder if I''m such a worrier because the tough outer shell around the softness of my soul never hardened all the way up." In what ways does she reveal the softness of her soul in this book? 9. In "Spatchcock This," Mary Laura attempts to follow her mother''s beloved holiday recipes, which don''t turn out quite as they should. She says she tackled the overambitious culinary challenge "too late, that was the problem, but at least I tried." Where else in these stories does Mary Laura try something, but not get it quite right? In what ways does the effort she puts into things sometimes mean more than the outcome? 10. As she realizes her oldest child has nearly reached adulthood, Mary Laura writes in "I Would Like to Report an Attack upon My Soul" that she considers herself a "still-growing child" and she, too, is "becoming someone, still and always." Do you identify with this concept? In what ways do you see Mary Laura constantly growing throughout these stories she tells? 11.

In the final essay, "Stay," Mary Laura defines herself as a person who loves birthdays, but says she understands why birthdays make some people sad. How does your birthday make you feel? Why? 12. What was your mood as you turned the final page of Bomb Shelter ? And how did this book change something about how you look at your own life? A Conversation with Mary Laura Philpott It seems like writing so intimately about your family could be challenging. Were there stories you worried about including? How did you decide you did indeed want to tell them? Boundaries were extremely important to me in writing Bomb Shelter. From the outset--and repeatedly throughout the writing process--I checked in with myself to make sure that what I was writing was my story, not a story about anyone else. What I mean is, I knew I had the perspective right as long as I could define what I was writing by saying, "This is a story about a woman who ." and not "This is a story about a boy who . (or a girl who .

or a man who . or a family who . )" If I kept that perspective right, then the boundaries would be obvious. You don''t need to know much at all about my family members for me to tell you a story about my evolution as a human being and as an anxious optimist. I need to tell only the pieces of their lives that overlap with these key pieces of my own life, and even in telling those pieces, I can protect their privacy in a variety of ways. I was especially concerned with protecting privacy where my children were involved. I don''t use my their names, for instance. They also read and weighed in on every word of this book.

It helps, too, that one of them is legally an adult and the other isn''t far behind . I do feel they''re old enough to give meaningful consent to being included in their mother''s memoir. You have some incredible essay titles that jump off the page--"Turtles, Turtles, Turtles," "Do You Hear the People Sing?," "The Six Stages of Finding Out You Have High Cholesterol," "Spatchcock This"--how do you come up with such memorable titles? Oh, thank you! Coming up with titles--whether for books or individual essays/chapters--is one of the most enjoyable parts of the process for me. I absolutely love it when writer friends ask me for help brainstorming book titles! It''s really fun to find that one little phrase from a larger piece that can represent the whole thing in a way that''s intriguing but not totally baffling--something that piques curiosity and also just sounds good in the ear. That''s the winning combination. Was there a story you most wanted to tell? How do readers seem to respond to it? So many stories I''ve been wanting to tell came together in this book. It was practically knitting itself together in my head every waking (and sleeping!) moment for a couple of years. I''ve been carrying around the story in "Worst Case Scenario"--about being a second grader and hearing of the kidnapping of an older girl who lived near me--for so long.

I knew I wanted to tell the story in the title chapter, "Bomb Shelter," too, because learning about my dad''s secret job illuminated so much about love and risk and our protective instincts. And then all these smaller stories that might on the surface seem unrelated--the dog who wouldn''t eat, my friend who died, those strange snippets of stories I heard from my parents when I was little--they all bubbled up from my memory and demanded to be included in this book. And, of course, I knew that to tell the story of being a mother and learning to let go of my children as they leave the nest, I would need to explain what heightened the stakes in that otherwise ordinary phase of life: the sudden turn in my son''s health. I knew that scene had to come early in the book, because it''s what kicked my worry into a whole new gear and set a clock ticking in my head. I probably spent more time on that chapter--"Hurry, Hurry"--than any of the others, because I really wanted to honor its importance. Do you have a favorite memoir or essay collection written by another writer? Did it influence your work on Bomb Shelter at all? Oh my goodness, I couldn''t even begin to make a whole list of my favorites here--it would go on for pages! I''ve always loved the geniuses who manage to trick you into thinking you''re getting comedy while they slyly stab you right in the heart with something poignant and meaningful: David Sedaris, Nora Ephron, etc. But this time around, because this book goes a little deeper and darker in terms of mood a.