Pulitzer Book Club Inclusion Guide
"The Magnificent Ambersons"
by Booth Tarkington
INCLUSION MILESTONES
1919
• Johnson organizes peaceful protests against racial violence
• Laborers strike to protest working conditions
• Felix the Cat first cartoon character
AUTHOR INSPIRATIONS
Indiana boy raised in upper-middle-class family; Mother Tarkington was dominant family figure. Booth was well-educated, good student and congressional rep comfortable mingling with aristocrats. Woodruff Place in Indianapolis said to be model for book’s setting.
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– Share your key take-away about inclusion in this book in a sentence or two.
– Write a paragraph or two (up to 250 words) to describe your thoughts on exclusion/inclusion in the book, why you related or did not connect with the book, and why you think reading, inclusion and dialog about inclusion matter.
– Identify the name and website address of a cause you support with an inclusive mission.
Comeuppance and sloooow awakening of an obnoxious, bigoted scion.
Innovator told automobiles are a useless nuisance.
Portrait of the decline of a Gilded Age family.
Slow to hook 10 hours, 248 pages
The child who chooses very bad behavior is not an angel to be coddled.
Focus on world of self-centered, gilded young man during changing times and population.
Fall of social hierarchy’s top tier.
Obvious distain, disrespect, and condescension for those not at the top of economic or social ladder or at odds with desires or goals. Clear bigotry toward Black people.
Geographic and housing divide based on social status and ethnicity.
Pulling of political strings to get a government appointment.
Warped family dynamics.
Instantly, graciously serve your gilded age pompous guests. Salmon salad, cold beef, cheese and cake should be acceptable.
“People who have repeated a slander either get ashamed or forget it, if they’re left alone. Challenge them, and in self-defense they believe everything they’ve said.”
Somewhere once grand that has suffered a fall from grace.
Or stage a room as if it was the last night in the house before the shoe will drop.
Why read a novel that includes offensive behavior and language?
What disturbed you in this novel?
Did anything in this novel broaden your thinking? Why/why not?
Describe change and progress in the novel, including attitudes toward and status among groups of people.
What did innovation, factories, and soft coal did for and to the town and its citizens?
Discuss how generational wealth and innovation influenced life and interactions in the novel and over time in America.
Discuss how Indiana’s attitudes toward Black people and slavery before and after the Civil War manifested during the Gilded Age in the novel.
How can parenting, kindness, and forgiveness ignite inclusiveness?
Check out Woodruff Place, considered the original Indianapolis suburb, on the National Register of Historic Places, and decide if homes, streets, fountains, statues have an Amberson vibe. There’s a biennial Homes Tour the last weekend in June in odd-numbered years.
Go to Indianapolis and take a Black History Walk and Talk, and see the Indiana History Center, Museum of American Indians and Western Art, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
Make time for the Connor Prairie in Fishers, Indiana, named a Site of Conscience for exhibits and programs connecting past struggles to current human rights movements.
The Magnificent Ambersons 1942 adaptation is Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane sequel.
Tarkington wrote more than 40 novels, including the Penrod novels, as well as plays and short stories. Prequel and sequel to Ambersons in Growth trilogy are The Turmoil (1915), The Midlander (1924). Some consider Tarkington’s other Pulitzer winner, Alice Adams (1921), part of that series.
Tarkington wrote more than 40 novels, including the Penrod novels, as well as plays and short stories.