Mary

Nat Cassidy admits that he may not have been the most appropriate person to write a book from the point of view of a middle-aged woman. Do some aspects of the novel point to the novelist’s unfamiliarity with a woman’s experience of life? Why or why not?

Is Mary a feminist text? Why or why not?

Discuss different kinds of horror in the novel, including body horror, gore, and suspense. Which techniques are used, and what purpose do they serve?

Mary is an unreliable narrator whose experience of events comes into question because of her fainting spells and lost time. How does this characterization play into the novel’s ideas about women?

How does Cassidy use the Greek myth of the Furies? Why do the ghosts of the women whom Damon Cross killed take on this identity?

Examine the idea of usefulness in the novel. Why does the cult fixate on the usefulness of its members? How do different characters interpret this word, and why?

The novel has many epigraphs from real and fictional texts. Choose two or three epigraphs and explore their importance to the text. What do these epigraphs reveal about the novel and its characters?

Consider how Cassidy uses the tropes of Gothic horror literature in the novel. How does the Cross House, for example, play into ideas about the mysterious mansion? Does it transcend or subvert this trope? Why or why not?