Austin Chapter
Reader's Guide
April 2003
Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter
by Barbara R. Moss
A writer remembers the indignities, the poignancies, the cruelties, and the compromises demanded by the deep poverty of her Alabama youth. In her debut volume, Moss says she wishes "to go back in time-to heal old wounds and reclaim my family."...
- The Library of Congress has cataloged the book as (a) Adult children of alcoholics and (b) U.S. - Biography. How would you catalogue it? Why?
- How did humor and playing together help Barbara and her siblings survive their childhood?
The following questions are from the back of the book: A Touchstone Reading Group Guide. Download guides for free at: www.simonsays.com/reading_guides.html.
- What is the meaning of the title "Change Me into Zeus's Daughter"? To what extent do you think a person's identity is wrapped up in her/his physical appearance? Do you think the connection between physical appearance and identity is different in women than it is in men? How?
- In its stunning opening pages, Barbara Robinette Moss's memoir details the pain of growing up in a family so poor that a pesticide-treated bag of seed looks good enough to eat, and of being controlled by a tyrannical, alcoholic father. What emotions does the book evoke? How does Moss keep her childhood account of grinding poverty, neglect, and abuse from becoming overly depressing or self-pitying?
- Critics have compared Barbara Robinette Moss's memoir to Frank McCourt's best-selling memoir Angela's Ashes. What other books does Change Me into Zeus's Daughter call to mind? Why do you think this kind of intimate memoir of family life has become such a popular form of literary expression?
- "He inflicted pain recreationally, both physical and emotional. It was his hobby, his pastime," Barbara Robinette Moss recalls at her father's funeral. How well-rounded is the author's portrait of her father? Did you find it believable? To what extent do you think her picture of him is distorted by memory and the passage of time?
- One reviewer of Change Me into Zeus's Daughter has remarked that the child's perspective of this memoir does not penetrate the mysteries of the parents' relationship, leaving the reader to wonder at the "tangle of emotions that drove her father to be so brutal and her mother so sheepishly deferential." Do you agree or disagree with this judgment? Do you think the more sophisticated perspective of adulthood is truer than that of childhood - or is it merely different? Why?
- Despite the severe deprivation they must endure, the author and her seven siblings share an extraordinary emotional bond. Discuss the ways in which they support one another, united in their adoration of their mother and in their conflicted feelings of love and hate for their father.
- Describing her mother's devotion to their father, Moss writes: "She seemed to crave him as much as he craved alcohol." Why do you think that Dorris, who would offer herself up time and again to absorb her husband's brutality to shield her children, was unable or unwilling to take the one step that would truly protect them - leaving him? Do you think that this kind of abusive relationship is best understood as an addiction? Do you think she felt she had any other choices?
- When the author has grown up and become a mother herself, her mother at last finds the motivation to leave the marriage. She has discovered that her husband is cheating on her. Barbara, who has always idolized her mother, rages silently in anger and resentment: "She's going to leave him now? Now that we've all grown and out of the house? You mean he could do anything to us - anything to her - as long as he didn't sleep with another woman?" Did this loving mother effectively place a higher premium on sexual fidelity than she did on the welfare of her children? Why do you think some women are willing to endure terrible indignities in a marriage but will leave as soon as they are confronted with evidence of their husband's unfaithfulness?
- "In our family, government help had always been considered unacceptable," Moss says. Do you think the pride demonstrated by this attitude is well founded? How do you think the author's childhood could have been different had her mother sought help? What values do you impart to your children by either accepting or foregoing government help?
- Toward the book's close, as Moss struggles to be a full-time student and single mom, she asks her father for a small loan to help her pay some unexpected medical bills. Devastated when he turns her down, she is sure he doesn't take her need seriously because she is a girl. How did Moss's mother, in her own words and deeds, express her views on a woman's worth?
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