Summary and Reviews of The Remedy for Love by Bill Roorbach

Excerpt
The Remedy for Love

The young woman ahead of him in line at the Hannaford Superstore was unusually fragrant, smelled like wood smoke and dirty clothes and cough drops or maybe Ben Gay, eucalyptus anyway. She was all but mummified in an enormous coat leaking feathers, some kind of army-issue garment from another era, huge hood pulled over her head. Homeless, obviously, or as homeless as people were in this frosty part of the world—maybe living in an aunt's garage or on her old roommate's couch, common around Woodchuck (actually Woodchurch, though the nickname was used more often), population six thousand, more when the college was in session, just your average Maine town, rural and self-sufficient.

Idly, Eric watched her unload her cart: he knew her situation too well. Sooner or later she'd be in trouble, either victim or perpetrator, and sooner or later he or one of seven other local lawyers would be called upon to defend her, or whomever had hurt her,...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. A plot can sometimes be thought of as a cascade of events. Can you trace the elements of that cascade here? Which moments could be considered points of no return? Upon which elements does the story primarily turn?
2. Our protagonists meet in line at a grocery store, each with a basket of purchases that might or might not illuminate their characters. How do those purchases find their ways into the rest of the story? What role does food—buying, cooking, serving, eating—play in the novel?
3. Eric and Danielle seem ill suited for one another on the surface, yet as events peel away their defenses and their social strategies, an essential compatibility is revealed. Or is it? Do you think there's a chance they will continue on beyond ...