The Vivisectors Book Club Questions & Discussion Guide

About this book

Set in a verdant, crumbling university town of fraudulent professors, militant gardeners, abusive mothers, and cancel-culture feuds, Missouri Williams's novel is pitched as a new kind of love story for a broken era. Gothic, otherworldly, and genuinely experimental, it is rollickingly told and deliberately strange. The judges called it a bracing antidote to the cozy campus novel.

Discussion questions

1. The novel drops us into a crumbling university town full of frauds, feuds, and gothic strangeness. What was your first impression of that world, and of the tone the book sets?
2. This is a genuinely experimental, rollicking, deliberately strange book. If its form ever threw you, what kept you reading, the voice, the satire, or the atmosphere?
3. The town is populated by fraudulent professors, militant gardeners, and abusive mothers. Which of these figures stayed with you, and what did the book's cast reveal about its world?
4. It is pitched as a new kind of love story for a broken era. Where did you find the love in it, and did the novel earn that framing for you?
5. The judges called it a bracing antidote to the cozy campus novel. What did it ultimately seem to be saying about academia, cancel-culture feuds, and our broken moment?
6. Williams writes in a genuinely experimental, gothic mode. How did that style shape your reading, and did the strangeness deepen the book or hold you at a distance?
7. The verdant, decaying university town is almost a character. How did that gothic setting shape the story's mood and its satire?
8. Did this remind you of another dark-academia or gothic novel, or another experimental satire, in a book, a film, or life?
9. The book skewers a broken era while still reaching for love. Did that balance resonate for anyone at the table?
10. Who would you hand this to next, the reader who loves experimental, gothic fiction or someone tired of the cozy campus novel, and who should approach it with care?

Themes to listen for

• A broken era and the wreck of academia
• Abusive family and its shadow
• Love in dark times
• Cancel-culture and feud
• The gothic and the experimental

If your club liked this, try…

• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Bunny by Mona Awad
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Where to get it

• Check availability at your local library
• Find it on Bookshop.org

Practical notes

Best for clubs that love experimental, gothic fiction and dark academia. A deliberately strange, demanding read.

Content notes: Abusive family dynamics and dark themes.