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Reading Group Guide

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1. Instead of following a character or characters through their life or lives, the reader follows a green button accordion through 20th-century America. How does this alter the traditional concept of the novel? What role then do the characters play?

2. Describe Proulx's literary voice. What makes it so distinct? Discuss her use of irony and humor and its importance in the novel. In addition to the accordion, what threads tie all the characters and their stories together?

3. What does the term "Accordion Crimes" mean?

4. As the story progresses and the accordion journeys from owner to owner, the accordion seems to decrease in value and importance to each character who possesses it. How is this relevant or pertinent to the America that emerges?

5. In the fore of Proulx's novel is a quote from Cornel West's Race Matters: "Without the presence of black people in America, European- Americans would not be 'white' -- they would be only Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and others engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity." How does this quote apply to Proulx's Accordion Crimes?

6. For a great part of the novel, there are fourteen one thousand dollar bills glued inside the bellows of the accordion. Discuss the importance of this money, its symbolic significance to the novel, and its ultimate fate?

7. Throughout the novel, Proulx uses flash-forwards, wherein the fate of one or another character is revealed in great, and at times, gruesome detail. These flash-forwards tie the story in all its stages and human parts to contemporary America. How did these devices affect your reading? In what way(s) are they effective?

8. Music plays a central role in Accordion Crimes. Describe the different music of the accordion, its various sounds, as it passes through the hands of Proulx's families. As America begins to evolve, in what ways does music, and specifically, the music of the accordion, begin to change? How does the music reflect America?

9. In Accordion Crimes, more than eight family stories are told in great detail, illuminating relationships between husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, parents and children. What view of marriage, family, and life does Accordion Crimes express?

10. What happens to the traditions the immigrants bring with them to America? What does Proulx's accordion symbolize? What does it mean to the different people who own it? What happens to the accordion in its long, erratic journey? What conclusions might be drawn from its fate?

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