Flesh Wounds

Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION

Flesh Wounds, Mick Cochrane's lucid portrait of an American family caught in crisis, begins from the point of view of Hal Lamm, a salesman who is being arrested for the molestation of his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Becky. But what begins as Hal's story becomes that of his wife, his children, and his grandchildren -- the people who have most suffered the consequences of his actions, and the ones forced to come to terms with their knowledge. By the end of the book, in fact, Hal seems to have all but faded from view, not just for the reader, but for his family, most of whom have come to make peace with their conflicted feelings toward him.

More than a story about incest though, Flesh Wounds is largely a book about family relations, and the tangled, tender, painful, ambivalent nature of our feelings toward those who have both loved us the most and hurt us the most. How, for instance, can Hal's grown-up daughter Ellie -- also a victim of Hal's sexual abuse -- find a way not only to forgive an emotionally absent mother who turned a blind eye to her husband's misdeeds, but ultimately to forge a warm and loving relationship with her? How can his grown son Cal begin to connect with his anger toward his father -- enough to physically assault the aging, defenseless Hal -- only after the birth of his daughter? And how do different members of the family respond to such a resounding crisis, especially when it will force them either to reshape the way they feel about themselves and those related to them, or to reject the notion so vehemently -- as Maureen and Geoff do -- that they must constantly ward off reality in order to keep their beliefs intact.

Like a handful of other brave and brilliant novels, such as Ordinary People and A Thousand Acres, Flesh Wounds shatters the myth of the perfect family -- the glossy apple-pie image many people aspire to -- to get beneath the surface and expose the messy, scattered complexities that are at the heart of each family. Cochrane reveals not only the often devastating acts that take place behind closed doors, but also the astounding tools of the human psyche: to deny an unmistakable reality if it serves our purposes; to protect ourselves from pain, even if it means causing more pain for others; and, as only a courageous few will do, to look the truth unflinchingly in the eye while others must look away.

A CONVERSATION WITH MICK COCHRANE

Q: What inspired you to write this story, in particular, about the subject of incest?

A: I think the real subject of Flesh Wounds is family. It's about the injuries we suffer in families, injuries that may scar but not kill us -- Flesh Wounds -- and it's about the strength and comfort and healing we find in families. (I don't think of Flesh Wounds as about incest any more than I think of Ordinary People as being about boating accidents or suicide.) Hal's arrest is a precipitating event; it shakes things up; it makes it so things will never be the same again. For that reason, I think, it's a good beginning for a novel. It takes several hundred pages to record the tremors.

Q: Next to Hal, Phyllis could be considered one of the more reprehensible characters in the story, yet she seems to redeem herself in your eyes and even emerges as one of the most likable in the story. Explain why you constructed it in this way. Should the reader forgive her?

A: I don't know whether or not a reader should forgive Phyllis. I'd like a reader to understand her; I'd like a reader to believe in her; I'd like a reader to find her convincing and memorable. Of course Phyllis is a deeply flawed character. She's guilty of a great many sins of omission and commission, of misplaced loyalty, of a kind of paralyzing cowardice. At the same time, I think, she demonstrates a capacity for self-honesty and for change. Unlike Hal, she comes to think of herself as responsible for her own life. For her to sift through the stuff of her life and let it all go, once and for all, might be considered an act of quiet courage. I like her because she has a sense of humor; she can laugh at herself.

Q: You only briefly touch upon Geoff, yet it seems he is a very troubled and dangerous character. What did you imagine was happening/had happened in his life?

A: Geoff is troubled and dangerous. He is very much Hal's son, devoted to objects and surfaces, a man who does his damage in the dark. I didn't include an elaborate psychological history for him, in part because I'm suspicious of neat explanations of why people do what they do, in part because I don't think a reader needs it. I wanted a reader to feel his menace, the way Ellie and Calvin do -- glimpse it out of the corner of their eye -- the way we meet and respond to people we see every day.

Q: You write very convincingly from several different points of view, especially women's (of all ages). How do you account for these voices? Are the characters based on people you know?

A: To tell this story the right way, I knew I needed to do justice to more than one perspective. I am fascinated by competing family stories, by the way one person's version is never identical to his or her siblings' or parents'. I especially like narratives that seem to acknowledge that we are all puzzles to each other and puzzled by each other, that our knowledge is always incomplete.

When writing from the point of view of my women characters -- Phyllis or Ellie or Maureen or Becky -- I don't recall thinking of them so much as women as particular people. I never thought of them as members of a group or examples of a type. I thought about what each of them knew and didn't know, what they loved and what they feared. I thought about their dreams and what they ate. The kinds of words they used, what made them laugh. I imagined them in particular surroundings -- shopping for a baby shower gift, attending a furniture restoration class -- and tried my best to evoke the world as they experienced it, both the concrete world's sights and sounds and smells -- and their responses to it. I imagined what it was like to be someone else and wrote it down. That's what novelists do.

Q: Though inherently tragic, the ending of Flesh Wounds feels somewhat uplifting. How do you think each of the principal characters has made peace with his or her struggles?

A: I'm not convinced the novel is tragic. Hal is left defiant and unrepentant, cowering alone behind the door in his suburban hell, but he's no tragic hero. And at Embers, for example, there is a kind of unlikely coming together, a late-night communion -- pancakes and milk shakes that seems more the stuff of comedy than tragedy. Like life, it's a complicated mix -- sorrowful and funny, sad and joyous.

Ellie does achieve a kind of peace through work and faith, through her oddball prayers, through imagination and the love of her family. And after gaining a visceral understanding of his father and -- literally throwing him off, Calvin finds some sense of spiritual connectedness with his newborn daughter at the Good Shepherd Church. But most people never make peace with their struggles, not completely. Becky, for example, is scarred but resilient -- she has a long road ahead of her. So does Maureen for that matter, so do Dylan and Earl Bass.

Q: This story is very moving and emotional. Were there times when you got too involved and had to put it down because it overwhelmed you?

A: If a writer is deeply moved by something he or she has written, I think they should probably keep quiet about it. I will say that I never forgot that I was writing a novel; most of my emotions in regard to its composition were writerly -- the daily blend of curiosity and bewilderment and surprise. Writing the novel didn't feel overwhelming; it felt like intensely interesting and immensely satisfying work. And while I may never have laughed out loud, parts of the book did strike me -- and still do -- as funny.

Q: How do you feel about the comparison people are making to other books, in particular, to Ordinary People?

A: Naturally I'm flattered. Judith Guest showed that it's possible to make memorable and moving fictions by writing compassionately and accurately about everyday dramas. To be mentioned alongside her is high praise.

Q: What are you working on now? How does it relate to/differ from what you did in Flesh Wounds?

A: I'm writing a second novel about another -- different -- Midwestern family. Beyond that, I don't feel ready yet to compare and contrast.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. In Flesh Wounds, Mick Cochrane broaches the painful subject of incest. How do you think he handled it? Did it seem realistic? Was it difficult for you to read about?
2. In the beginning of the book, Phyllis is protective of Hal, helping him escape from the police, not seeming to be angry or accusatory toward him. Explain how she emerges from an almost invisible character to become the protagonist. How and why does her attitude toward Hal change throughout the book? Is Phyllis a likable character?
3. In discussing Ellie's obsession with her furniture restoration class, Cochrane writes: "It was the act of restoration above all that fascinated her: scraping and burning and sanding away layer after layer and discovering finally the wood beneath, smelling it, letting it breathe, after all those coats of paint and stain and shellac and God knows what.... Recently she had heard about dipping things ... she had even dreamed once of being dipped herself, burned pink as a newborn in a frothy cauldron and emerging clean and raw" (p. 28). How does this symbolism relate to Ellie's past and current struggles?
4. Each chapter in the book comes from a different character's point of view. How does this balance out the story? Discuss the different ways each child sees Hal.
5. Maureen claims that Hal never touched her. Do you believe this, and if not, what makes you question it? How does her attitude toward the men in her life make it easy to see why she would forgive Hal or block out the memory of his abuse?
6. At one point in the story, Ellie partially blames her mother, his sidekick, for Hal's abuse. How do Ellie's feelings for her mother change by the end of the book? How does the fire bring Phyllis and Ellie closer together?
7. Does Hal ever acknowledge the damage he's done to his family? How do you think he views himself? Do you ever feel sympathetic toward him, and if so, why?
8. How does Grace's birth change Calvin's feelings toward his father? What makes him lash out at Hal on his front steps?
9. When Phyllis gets her car washed, she imagines her [car's] undercarriage being eaten away, the metal slowly corroding, dark spots forming (p. 103). How is this a foreshadowing of the ending of the book? How do you feel about Phyllis's illness? Does she seem at peace with her life in the end?
10. What prompts Ellie to slip the note under Hal's door? What makes her finally forgive him and how does her forgiveness free her? How does the note make Hal feel?