This reading group guide for Imperfect Endings includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Zoe FitzGerald Carter. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

Zoe FitzGerald Carter’s mother, Margaret, is a beautiful, independent-minded woman who has suffered from Parkinson’s and other ailments for over twenty years. Knowing that her future holds only further debilitation and the slow erosion of both her body and her pride, Margaret decides to “end things”—and asks her three daughters to be there with her when she does it.

For months, Margaret discusses possible means of suicide and repeatedly sets and changes her “death dates.” Zoe and her sisters begin to wonder if she is serious and, if she is, who among them is willing to take on the emotional and legal risks of being with her at the end? As the “good daughter,” Zoe wants to help her mother achieve a good death but is distraught at the prospect of losing her. Revisiting difficult scenes from her past—including memories of her larger-than-life father, her glamorous, stubborn mother, and her warring sisters—Zoe finds herself examining her own see more