An Elderly Lady is up to No Good

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. Maud is a complex character who commits terrible crimes. How did you feel about her? How might her age, gender, and backstory impact your feelings?

2. This collection of stories satirizes stereotypes about elderly people and parodies the little-old-lady amateur sleuth subgenre of mysteries. Did you find it funny? Did it make you think, or was it simply entertaining?

3. Characters like Maud are unusual, but not unprecedented. Have you seen or read Joseph Kesselring’s play Arsenic and Old Lace, Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age, or Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg and Rod Bradbury’s The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules? Which of the protagonists is portrayed most sympathetically? How do the themes of these works compare or contrast with those in An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Which of Maud’s victims did you feel the most sympathy for? The least? How do your own beliefs and the book’s crafting of your experience as a reader both contribute to your answers?

2. Have you ever felt underestimated because of a social category people identify you with? How is your experience similar to or different from Maud’s?

3. When, if ever, is it ethical or unethical to manipulate others by using their preconceived stereotypes against them? What distinguishes one situation from the other?

4. How did you feel about Maud’s isolation from other people? What does your response say about your own desire for solitude and control versus your desire for companionship and connection?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. How does society stereotype older people—particularly older women? Are all of these stereotypes negative? Can it still be harmful to attribute supposedly positive qualities to a person based on a social category they belong to? How are these concerns reflected in An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good?

2. What kinds of social privilege does Maud have? To what extent does her backstory make her seem more or less privileged than other characters in the story? In the real world, how does a history of either privilege or deprivation seem to impact the way people view themselves and others? Do you see this in Maud’s perspective?

3. Maud’s perspective on people like Jasmin and Zazza makes it clear that she sees some people as more inherently worthy than others. How does this reflect real-world reactions to crimes against different kinds of people?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. In what way can each of these stories stand alone? How might reading one of these stories in isolation impact a reader’s understanding of Maud and her actions? How might it change a reader’s understanding of the story’s meaning?

2. What do Richard and Maud have in common as people? What are the key differences between them? How does including Richard as a character—and offering his perspective—impact the reader’s reaction to Maud and her perspective?

3. How would you describe the tone of the third-person narrator? How do diction, detail choice, and other aspects of the narrator’s language shape this tone? How does the narrator’s tone impact the characterization of Maud, despite the narrator being a separate person from Maud?

4. How does Maud’s constant travel characterize her? How does it relate to the symbolic use of her apartment and, through this symbol, to the text’s larger meaning?

5. Which elements of the text work together to create satire and parody? What are the purposes of these satirical and parodic elements—what points about the wider world are these elements intended to make?

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. If you were casting roles for a television series based on these stories, what would you write in your casting notice for the role of Maud? What qualities—physical and non-physical—would you want an actor to bring to this role, and why?

2. If you created a mood board for Maud’s apartment, what kinds of images would you include? Why would these specific colors, objects, events, and so on be appropriate to convey what you want to convey about her home?