When he was four or thereabouts, Scotty Ocean liked to stand on the piano bench while his mother, a painter of abstracts, played the only song she knew.
She practiced it daily, her eyes closed, a Salem cigarette burning in the nearby ashtray.
For Scotty there was no place better to be than at her side, where he might tug at her blouse or whisper in her ear or pound the black keys with his fists. But it hardly mattered what he did because when Joan Ocean played her song, everything -- even Scotty -- disappeared.
One day he said something that brought her to a stop.
She made him say it again. This time she watched closely as his pink lips shaped the sounds. She would never forget it. Later it would haunt her: his eyes, his voice, and the words, spoken simply...
"Seven is going to be my year."
Copyright © 1998 by Peter Hedges
An Ocean in Iowa
Funny, sad, and constantly surprising, An Ocean in Iowa explores the fragile contracts between parents and children and what it really means to grow up.
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Reading Group Guide
- An Ocean in Iowa is a striking title because of its incongruity. What is the title conveying about Scotty's feeling about his place in the universe and his ability to fit into his environment?
- The father in this story is strikingly complex, eliciting anger in some scenes, and tremendous sympathy in others. In the end, what do you make of him? Do you feel sympathetic towards his situation? Or, do you feel that he is in a situation of his own creation, and somewhat deserving of his misery? Is he really miserable, or has he come to terms with his life by the book's close? How do you interpret his identification as the Judge, rather than father or Walter, through most of the book? Does this say something about his character or about the primacy of his professional role over his familial role?
- The mother is a major character despite the fact that she appears in relatively few scenes; she is ever present even in absence. What do you make of her, on how is your feeling limited by her absence? Like the Judge, she is a complex character. Do you feel sympathetic for her, or do you blame her for the problems she has wrought on herself and her family? Is she, in some ways, a victim to her time? How would her life have been different had this been the 80s? 90s? How would it have been the same?
- This book is set in 1969, just as the women's liberation movement is beginning. How would t