• Early in the book (pages 7-11) Mr. Tench talks a little about home. He first says that "this (mexico) is home" and then talks about England is his home; he generally seems uncomfortable. Do you think Mr. Tench Feels like he belongs anywhere? Do you think his character symbolizes the discomfort of this time in Mexico?—LK

• Question: Is the stranger a clergyman? (p. 18)—BH

• Does the fact that the ether cylinder fails to arrive symbolize the fact that there will be pain in the coming chapters and it cannot be avoided? pt 1 ch 1—RA

• On page 19, the man was walking along with the boy to help his dying mother. The author stated that the man was "like the King of a West African tribe, the slave of his people". Do you guys think that world leaders, like President Obama, are in a sense slaves to their people?—RS

• pg. 23: How can a bank robber and a murder be less dangerous to society than a priest?—JB

• Why does Coral act so above her age? How do you picture her childhood from the passage on page 34 "...the only life she could remember, the swamp and the vultures and no children anywhere"—JP

• p. 36. So this is when Capt. Fellows discovers the priest is in his barn. I was just wondering if you guys thought that it was right for the daughter to hide the priest, and what must have been going through her mind?—KW

• My question comes from page 58. The lieutenant wants to remove superstition and corruptness from this boy's childhood. Do you think this is a selfish endeavor to make society fit his vision? Or do you think that the lieutenant really does care about other people and has a misguided way of showing it? If the latter, then would you consider him to be a bad person? Why?—CD

• On page 58, We see the lieutenant is " quite prepaed to make a massacre for their sakes- first the Church and then the foreigner and then the politician - even his own cheif would one day have to go. He wanted to begin the world again with them, in a desert." What makes this desert-state of existence so appealing? Why would someone kill for this?—KM

• Q: Around what time period do you guys think this takes place?—ER

• Throughout the entire section we read, the priest remains unnamed. Is there any significance behind this?—SM