Austin Chapter
Reader's Guide
December 2001
Remembering the Bonehouse: An Erotics of Place and Space
by Nancy Mairs
"The house builds itself somehow into your tissues. Its floor plan, the color of its walls, its smell of fir and candied orange peel at Christmas, the summer light banding the kitchen floor, the chill of September that strokes its way up under your nightgown when you throw back the covers etch themselves into the whorls of your brain. It belongs to you in a sense no title can confer. You have metabolized it. It lives
in your bones."
- What were some of the different houses Nancy lived in, and what did they represent for her at that part of her life and later?
- Which house do you think was her "favorite" in terms of really belonging there? Which settled most in her bones? Do you have a favorite house that represents certain feelings and states of being for you?
- What do you think about Nancy’s view of the body: (p. 173) "Your body is a body. Not a holy place of worship but a person. Not a structure ‘you’ occupy like a maidservant in her master’s house but you, yourself. Make yourself at home."
- What were Nancy’s early relationships with men like, including the one with her Dad? What were her early encounters with boys like, and how did she feel?
- What role does Nancy think she was pigeon-holed into by her family? Do you think this view was valid?
- What purpose do you think the numerous affairs provided her?
- Do you think Nancy overcame the trained image of herself as "a body-for-others rather than a body-for-myself" by the end of her story?
- Did you enjoy this book overall? What were your favorite parts? Your least favorite parts?