Chris Benjamin, author of Roseway’s Drive-by Saviours, is holding a DBS contest. All you have to do is 1) read Drive-by Saviours and 2) answer the questions below. But I’ll leave the written instructions to the writer himself:
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It’s contest time!
With input from my publisher I’ve come up with a series of discussions for book clubs reading Drive-by Saviours. But, as I proved in high school when I formed the Chris Benjamin Club, one member is often enough to qualify for club status. What I’m getting at is you can answer these questions all by your lonesome.
And if you do, in writing, you could win a copy of Earlit Shorts 4!
I’m pasting the questions below. The first 10 people to email me [chrisbenjaminwriting@gmail.com] answers, or better yet post them online in a blog, via Facebook, or at book review portals like http://www.librarything.com,http://www.goodreads.com, http://www.chapters.ca, or http://www.amazon.ca, will receive a free copy of Earlit Shorts 4, an audio anthology of short fiction from Rattling Books. Please answer honestly; I can take it. I’ll post your answers [or excerpts, depending on length] on my website and my publisher [http://fernwoodpublishing.ca/] may do the same. Now, there are a lot of questions here and, being a reasonable guy, I ask only that you answer the ones that interest you most or most spark your imagination.
Thanks for playing, and remember to include your mailing address so I can send you the audio anthology.
Here are the questions:
Were you drawn more to Mark or Bumi? Why?
Which of the two men did you most identify with? Why? Was the one you identified with the same as the one you were drawn to? Does that tell you anything about yourself as a reader? As a person?
Mark suffers from paralysis by analysis – he wants to help but he has so many questions and he is so overwhelmed by uncertainty that he usually fails to act at all. Did this irritate you? What would you say to Mark if he asked for your advice?
Between the two men, Bumi faced greater challenges in life, yet Mark was the more disillusioned of the two? Why do you think that is? Did Mark hold your interest as a character despite his negativity and boredom with his own life?
5. The novel was half set in Indonesia and half in Canada. Which scenes were most compelling for you and why? Was Bumi’s life in Canada as interesting as it was in Indonesia? Were his struggles with life as an illegal immigrant and his homesickness and culture shock compelling?
6.The novel alternates between a chronological third-person account of Bumi’s life and a first-person non-chronological narration by Mark. Why do you think the author chose this unusual structure? What was he trying to convey? Did he succeed?
The novel dealt with many themes: mental illness, social isolation, international development, Canadian multiculturalism, culture shock, immigration, cultural preservation, the question of what it is to help, the psychological impacts of authoritarianism, and indigenous healthcare. How do you feel about political literature? Did these issues serve the plot? Or did the plot seem like a device used to discuss political issues? Were politics too abundant in this work? Or a necessary component of a complex story?
Drive-by Saviours is also a novel about relationships, that of Bumi and Mark, Mark and his girlfriend, sister, parents, in-laws; Bumi’s parents, wife, kids, friends, in-laws. How did these various relationships feel to you? Authentic? Challenging? What made these relationships healthy or unhealthy? How did the main characters grow as a result of their relationships?
Drive-by Saviours, written by a male author, is primarily about Mark and Bumi. There are also many female characters in the book. How did you feel about characters like Michelle, Sarah, Gaby, Yaty, Bunga and Win? Are they well developed and complete people? Do they perpetuate or challenge sexism and predominant stereotypes? Women are often infantilized, sexualized and victimized in portrayal – do the female characters in this book fall into this trap? Or are they whole people with individual strengths and weaknesses?