The novel explores the theme of Navigating Precarity in the Search for a Livable Life. Analyze how this precarity manifests in the professional and personal lives of Nakia and Monique L. How do their divergent approaches to ambition and public life illustrate the specific challenges Black women face in achieving stability and recognition?

How does loss manifest differently in Desiree Richard’s, January Wells’s, Nakia’s, and Monique’s lives? Consider how the characters’ personal encounters with loss precipitate their individual and collective responses to Nakia’s death. How does the novel distinguish between private grief and the public appropriation of tragedy?

Analyze the formal, narrative, and thematic significance of Monique’s “Black in the Stacks” blog posts. How do they function as a mode of social critique? How does her public, analytical voice relate to, veil, or contrast with her private vulnerabilities?

Compare and contrast Flournoy’s representations and examinations of family life in The Wilderness versus in her debut novel, The Turner House. Does The Wilderness reiterate the themes explored in The Turner House or build upon them? Cite both texts and incorporate external sources.

In the tradition of novels centered on female friendship, a “chosen sisterhood” often provides a refuge from patriarchal structures. To what extent does the friendship in The Wilderness fulfill this role? Analyze how the bond between the four women both supports and challenges their individual autonomy. Which other works of literary fiction is The Wilderness in conversation with?

Compare and contrast Desiree and Danielle Joyner’s regards for their shared and inescapable family history. Consider their divergent experiences and interpretations of Sherelle’s passing, Nolan Richard’s death by assisted suicide, and Terry Joyner’s fatherhood. How do their intersecting experiences relate to the novel’s theme of The Inescapable Weight of the Past?

Analyze Flournoy’s depictions of and the protagonists’ relationships with New York and Los Angeles. How do these cities function as active forces that shape the characters’ senses of opportunity, belonging, self, and morality?

Analyze the depiction of state power in the chapters detailing the “Bunker Hill Uprisings.” How does Flournoy use elements of speculative fiction, such as unmanned police vehicles and retroactive curfews, to critique contemporary issues of surveillance, policing, and systemic violence? Consider these sequences via the lens of Octavia Butler’s canon, whose work Flournoy’s characters reference throughout the novel.