To help you prepare for Sacramento Public Library's One Book Sacramento events leading up to author Steve Lopez's visit, here are ten book club discussion questions for Lopez's complicated reflection on friendship, The Soloist.

1. What factors shape the relationship between Steve and Nathaniel? How and why does that relationship change? Have you ever had a relationship like this, when the two people involved have vastly different stations in the world? What was that like?
2. Are you a classical music fan? Does your answer to that shape the degree to which you can enjoy or understand this book? Why or why not?
3. How and why does the public/private relationship between Steve and Nathaniel affect others?
4. Visiting Disney Hall for the first time, Nathaniel says “It’s like a dream. I don’t know if it’s a dream or purgatory (p. 114)”. What does Nathaniel mean by this? Does it apply to any opportunity you have experienced in your own life?
5. Are you able to relate to the central problem of this book – that Nathaniel’s mental illness prevents him from living the life he intended to live? Do you know someone who has suffered from a physical or mental illness that shapes his life?
6. Why would an individual choose not to accept medical/pharmacological treatment for a mental illness? Can or should you force treatment on someone who does not choose it for himself? Why or why not? Under what circumstances?
7. When do people behave generously? When do they not? What makes the difference? Does this have any real world applications?
8. Steve asserts that Nathaniel is freer than most mainstream people. What other stories explore this question of whether the freedom of living on the outskirts of society is worth its limitations? What is gained and what is lost?
9. To what degree is Steve free, as a writer? In what ways is he limited? To what extent does the state of the American newspaper industry play a role in this story? Will we lose anything important when someone like Steve Lopez can no longer tell this sort of story in this genre?
10. How do you compare the experience of reading this book with that of seeing the film? In what way is film a preferable form for this story? In what way is text the preferable form?

Go to calendar of One Book Sacramento events.

Go to ten discussion questions for related book:  The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.

Trailer from film version of The Soloist.