Austin Chapter
Reader's Guide
March 2003
The Invisible Garden
by Dorothy Sucher
Mystery writer Sucher liked the blue farmhouse she bought in northern Vermont, but she really got her teeth into the landscape, and the landscape got its teeth into her, shaking loose fine stories of her efforts to shape the place...
- What is the "invisible garden"? Do you have one?
- If you're a non-gardener, what interest in your life might correspond with an "invisible garden"?
- Ms. Sucher says that "the stream" gave her the promise of a chance to live in a place that "made my heart rejoice where I could grow into a different person." Have you such a place? Do you think a garden could be this place?
- Ms. Sucher never actually was able to make the garden she foresaw around the stream. Do you think this made her dream a failure? If no, why not?
- Ms. Sucher was able to overcome her fear of the woods, a fear which she considered a character flaw. How did she do this?
- She met quite a few Vermont "characters." Which one or ones do you think were most helpful - which most inspirational?
- Her format of writing each chapter as a separate essay is quite different from the structure of most memoirs we have read. Did this bother you or did you find it effective?
- Do you think her visit to Wanda in Key West helped here see this Vermonter in a different light?
- The passage about stones on page 107 gives us insights into Ms. Sucher's spiritual life. What significance might the idea in the last sentence, page 113, have for our own lives?
- The chapter on "Fred" reveals what about the "mother-daughter" relationship? Do you think this is a common problem?
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