Story Circle Network

Austin Chapter
Reader's Guide

November 2005

The Story of My Father
Sue Miller

Miller's first nonfiction book (after While I Was Gone; The World Below; etc.), about caring for her Alzheimer's-afflicted father, is a rare example of an illness memoir with widespread appeal...

  1. Although The Story of my Father is a memoir about Ms. Miller's father's life and death, it also tells us much about her mother. What do we learn about her mother, and about Sue's relationship with her?

  2. Do you think her relationship with her mother inclined her to relate more to her father, or was it his more nurturing personality that caused this?

  3. Did you learn anything about Alzheimer's and its progression that was new to you from this story?

  4. Her father's religious and pacifist background obviously affected his approach to life and his disease. Do you think his apparent easy acceptance of the disease and of Sue's decisions for him come from this background?

  5. What do you think about her feelings about his delusions, hallucinations, especially the one about Marlene? Was she doing him a service by going along with them instead of denying them as the nursery home staff did?

  6. It seems as if the major burden and decisions fell onto Sue, rather than her siblings. Why do you think this happened?

  7. On page 148 (in my copy) she says she "felt it in her bones" her father was dying. Do you believe this was unsupported intuition or the result of things she'd observed without realizing?

  8. Do you agree with her that we often "blame the disease upon the patient's character"? Examples?

  9. She says in the Afterword that she was uncertain how to use "voice" in this memoir. Why?

  10. I have taken one question from the ones in the back of my copy of the book, because I had wondered about it myself as I read: "How does the meaning of the biblical quotation 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you' thread throughout the book? Do you think God chooses a person's illnesses and death?"

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