Switzy by Emma Cline Book Club Questions & Discussion Guide
How do you say goodbye when no one knows you’re leaving?
David Hastings is losing his memory.
Accompanied by his assistant Cody, the wealthy former executive embarks on one final journey: first to London to see his daughter, then to France in search of an old friend and, ultimately, to Switzerland, where he has arranged to end his life.
As airports, hotel rooms and familiar faces become increasingly difficult to navigate, David’s past begins to interrupt the present. Songs, jokes, regrets and half-remembered encounters surface without warning, revealing a life that may not have been quite what David believed it to be.
Emma Cline’s Switzy explores memory, mortality, family and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are.
And it leaves us with one very big question: what remains of us when the things we use to define ourselves fall away?
THE BIG QUESTION
What remains of us when the things we use to define ourselves fall away?
David has built his identity around competence, wealth, work and control. As his memory deteriorates, those structures begin to fail him.
Yet fragments endure: a lyric, a joke, an old desire, a physical sensation and the need to be recognised. Are these fragments the truest parts of David or simply the last things his mind happens to retain?
And if David can no longer tell a reliable story about his life, does that change what his life meant?
He has planned everything. Almost.
INSIDE THE READING GUIDE
Our Switzy reading guide includes:
10 discussion questions exploring David’s unreliable consciousness, his relationships and the novel’s treatment of memory, mortality and control
Big ideas including identity, autonomy, family, ageing, power, dependence and connection
Further reading, watching and listening for anyone who isn’t quite done thinking about it yet
Free to download for personal and book club use.
This guide was created for Brunch Book Club’s Book Club After Hours event in partnership with Vintage. The discussion questions were provided by the publisher.
A little note from Brunch Book Club
Our discussion guides aren't homework.
They’re designed to give you somewhere to start, something to disagree about and a few cultural rabbit holes to disappear down afterwards.
Use all ten questions. Use three. Ignore them entirely because someone has just declared that David was completely entitled to keep his plans from Rebecca and now the whole table has thoughts.
There are no rules here.
Books. Brunch. Booze. Big conversations.
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