Book Club Discussion Questions for Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon

1. Consider how the violence of war and its continual bombing affects the three young children at the heart of Run Me to Earth.
2. In what way do the children manage to hold on to a shred of shared innocence, even as they sense that their lives will soon become harder.
3. Talk about how memories persist for years after the war, some filled with vivid suffering, others with deep tenderness. Which recollections most moved you—either because of their horror and brutality, or because of their humanity?
4. Alisak recalls the time he swallowed a tooth during a beating. "There were times this fact bothered him more than his own hunger or the sudden volley of gunfire." Why would that particular memory be so persistent?
5. What drives Prany to commit the violent acts that he does?
6. Twenty years after the end of the war, Khit tries to track down Alisak. Why does she search for him; what does she hope for. What did she and Prany feel for one another as teenagers, and how has that long ago connection affected her relations with her husband?
7. The novel begins and ends with Alisak. Why do you think the author made that choice? How has he been left after the war? How has the war continued to shape his life?
8. The novel begins as a single narrative line centered on the three children and Dr. Vang. Eventually, the storyline breaks up into separate strands. Talk about how the fractured structure reflects the shattered lives of the characters as a result of the ongoing war.
9. What is the complicity of America's intervention in Laos with the destruction it wrought?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.