Book: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Author: Aimee Bender
Edition: Doubleday hardcover, 2010
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The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake online at
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Major Characters
Rose Edelstein, narrator starting at 9 years old
Joseph, Rose’s older brother by 5 years
George, Joseph’s classmate and Rose’s support
Lane Edelstein, mom, Rose’s mother
Paul Edelstein, dad, Rose’s father
Grandma, Rose’s distant grandmother who lives in Washington State and never visits
Eddie Oakley, dodgeball rival, classmate
Eliza, classmate with a crush on George
Sherrie, classmate who uses Rose’s talent as therapy
Larry, co-op president, with whom mom is having an affair
Carl, dad’s college roommate
Locations
Willoughby Ave, Hollywood, CA, home of Edelsteins
Bedford Gardens, where Joseph has his apartment
La Lyonnaise—restaurant where Rose ends up working
Discussion Topics
Tasting Feelings
Can you imagine what feelings might taste like? Rose reacts so violently to her mother’s sadness, “You’re so sad in there, I said and alone, and hungry, and sad, “ page 75. On page 242 Rose tastes her own feelings. How does she react to that tasting? How does she grow through her cooking?
What must it feel like to have someone else’s feelings be a part of you? Have you ever felt someone else’s sorrow or joy so deeply, that it was a part of you? How are messages of need communicated among people? How do you receive others deepest feelings? How do people ‘shed’ their feelings among others?
Talents
Rose, Joseph and Dad each have a unique talent. Rose, the ability to taste emotions in food; Joseph the ability to morph into objects; the grandfather theh ability to smell people’s feelings; Dad, possibly a medical ability which he doesn’t explore (page 263). Each character has more ‘typical’ talents as well—Rose the ability to meet people (page 40) and Joseph, extreme intelligence. Dad, says his skill is making relationships happen—when referring to the footstool escapade in Berkeley—page 119.
Rose’s realization of Joseph’s ability grows over time. She first notices his ability as a blur, page 47 then expands on page 114 “my brother had taken to disappearing” and disappears when he babysits, page 122 and again on his high school graduation day, page 145. Finally he disappears into the chair page 189. He asks for the grandmother’s folding chairs. Why were those chairs important to Joseph? How do the characters react to one another’s more typical talents? How is Rose bothered by Joseph’s intelligence? How is Joseph burdened? What does Joseph’s ability to morph into objects represent to you? What does Rose’s ability to taste people’s feelings represent to you?
How does Rose react to finding out that George is helping Joseph with his studies and not the other way around? What does Mom think of Dad’s talent of making the footstool seem like fate? Dad says to Rose (page 170) “You have things to offer, he said, gruffly.” That is nearly the extent of their heart to heart talk.
Do you remembering discovering that a sibling or a parent wasn’t the best in some category where you had them on a pedestal? How did you react? How have your parents recognized or ignored your abilities?
Each faces his or her more unusual talent in significantly different ways. Rose confronts hers head on, talking with friends (George takes her to a bakery, page 60-67) and doctors about her taste sensations and eventually uses her talent to help teens. Joseph keeps his talent private, yet seems to pursue his ability to morph into objects. And Dad avoids his talent—staying outside of hospitals even for the birth of his children and when Joseph is hospitalized. Dad doesn’t want to explore his talent “No, he said. I’m sorry, Rose. I saw what it did to my father. I’m not going in.” page 264. “Going in” may refer specifically to going into hospitals, but it can also take on a more symbolic meeting—Dad doesn’t want to go into his talent, to explore his skill. Rose is amazed that her father has a choice—he can avoid facing his talent. But does he truly avoid it? He isn’t in the hospital for his children’s births or for Joseph in the ER. What is the downside of ignoring his talent? How might Joseph and Rose have faced their fates differently if Dad had embraced his talent?
What talents do you have? How do you embrace or avoid them? How do you share them with others? What talents do you see others sharing? Hiding? What are the positive aspects of talents and what are negative?
Characters have varying degrees of belief in Rose’s, Joseph’s and Dad’s abilities. George embraces and believes both that Rose can taste feelings and Joseph can move into objects. George sees Rose’s talent as a positive, “It’s not a problem, it’s fantastic.” Page 71. Sherrie uses Rose’s talent and ignores the rest of Rose (page 159-161) . How do others’ reactions to their talents support or diminish each character? The school nurse and emergency room doctors don’t believe her and try to fit her into what they know— “she seems to be okay. Give her time,” page 79.
How have you supported a friend or a family member as he or she has explored her talents? How have you dismissed someone’s talents or seen someone’s talents dismissed? What talents do you see in others that they are unaware of?
Relationships
Parent/child
Joseph and his mother seem to have a much stronger bond than Rose and her mother. How does Rose react? Page 69 “sometimes I wondered if, on Saturdays, she dragged her hands over raw wood to preserve the special time with him.” And yet Rose actually knows more about how her mother is feeling than her brother. And she tells herself she needs to pretend she doesn’t, page 81: “and now my job was to pretend that I did not get the message.” Later Rose has a different view of her brother removing the splinters page 250 – “he was also removing all traces of any tiny leftover parts, and suddenly a ritual which I’d always found incestuous and gross seemed to me more like a desperate act on Joseph’s part to get out, to leave, to extract every little last remnant and bring it into open air.”
Page 280 mom admits that she sometimes feels like she doesn’t know her children. Rose thinks this is the humblest thing a mother could admit. How do you think Rose feels about this?
Have you ever felt like your parent didn’t know you?
Grandmother
What significance do the grandmother’s “gifts” and phone calls have? Page 99 “We still got regular packages of household items from Grandma, slowly mailing her life away in Washington State” How did you react to the grandmother’s pronouncement on page 91 “But you don’t even know me. How can you love me? It should be earned.” What do you make of that? On page 100, Mom offers to Rose a few bits of her relationship with her mother. How would you characterize the relationship between the Mom and the Grandmother?
When have you reached out to help someone and been rebuffed? Do you see varying degrees of emotional bonds between parents and children? How does that make you feel?
Spouses
Mom believes in signs. She believes her finding Dad was a sign. How does she react on her wedding day when Carl tells the story of the footstool? Page 89-90. How do you think her marriage and subsequent affair were shaped by that knowledge? Would it have been different if she had never found out? What does the footstool represent to Rose and why does she want to keep it? Page 91, “I patted the seat. This one, I said. The velvet was soft. I sidestepped the piles and took it for my room.”
What have you wanted to hold onto from your parents’ relationship? How have your relationships been changed by finding out something did not happen as you thought?
George
How is Rose’s relationship with George stifled? How is it fulfilled or unfulfilled? Should they have come together? Why didn’t they?
Siblings
When does Rose feel close to Joseph? What draws them together? What pulls them apart?
Growing Up
On page 279 Rose says she wants to go back to the innocence of being 8.
When have you wanted to go back? What information do you wish you didn’t know?
