How do Colette’s relationships with Alice and Finn Benson complicate her quest for vengeance? Does their shared pursuit of the truth help or hinder Colette’s individual pursuit of vengeance?

Explore the tension between distributing predominantly fictional stories, as Alice and Colette do, and collecting personal, factual accounts, as Millie does for the Federal Writers’ Project. How does the novel use these different narrative acts to comment on the power, responsibility, and potential dangers of controlling a story?

The “copper collar” is a central symbol of corporate oppression. Analyze how three different characters, Claude Durand, Alice Monroe, and Millie Lang, each devise distinct methods of resistance against this system in their respective eras.

How does the motif of Shakespeare’s plays evolve over the course of the novel?

Compare Sidney Walker’s photography with the Federal Writers’ Project guidebook. To what degree does each represent objective truth? To what degree are these media shaped by the perspectives of their authors?

Analyze how Alice, Colette, and Millie each challenge the patriarchal limitations of their time. What do their intersecting journeys suggest about the nature of female agency and solidarity in early 20th-century America?

How does the novel use the contrasting character arcs of Sidney Walker and Finn Benson, both men shaped by violent pasts, to explore the impacts of trauma, the construction of masculinity, and the nature of morality?

The Federal Writers’ Project sought to “Introduce America to Americans.” Does The Boxcar Librarian do the same? If so, how? Does it succeed in this goal?