Reader Discussion Guide

THE CARDINAL CLUB - A DAUGHTER’S JOURNEY TO ACCEPTANCE

by Suzanne Maggio

When Suzanne’s mother develops Alzheimer’s disease in her early 60s, she longed to find a way to hold on to her, to keep her from disappearing. She knew her mother would not see her grandchildren graduate from college, marry or have children. She wanted to make sure they remembered her and so she began to write.

Her relationship with her mother had not been an easy one. Mother/Daughter relationships often aren’t. In her career as a family therapist, Suzanne had helped dozens of families heal their relationships but until then, she had not been able to heal her own. THE CARDINAL CLUB - A DAUGHTER’S JOURNEY TO ACCEPTANCE is her work to do just that.

At the end of the prologue, Suzanne issues an invitation to the reader. “Writing this book changed me. Claiming one’s story will do that. I believe it can change you too.” While THE CARDINAL CLUB is the author’s personal journey to reconcile unfinished business, it is an invitation to the reader to begin to come to terms with the unfinished business in their own family.

The following guide offers questions for discussion. Each section is organized around a specific theme found in the book with questions from the reading. The Share Your Story section is an opportunity for the reader to apply the lessons of THE CARDINAL CLUB to their own journey.

On Identity

One of the themes in THE CARDINAL CLUB is the struggle to belong. The title of the book comes from a secret club Suzanne’s mother created with her children as they gathered around the dinner table.

What is the importance of the Cardinal Club to Suzanne and her siblings? To her mother? How are they shaped by the other “clubs” they belong to?
Suzanne’s mother worked hard to shape the family’s identity. What was important to her and why? How did she want her family to be seen?
What were some of the key experiences that shaped Suzanne’s individual identity?
What messages do the children learn about belonging, commitment and acceptance?

Share Your Story

What “clubs” do you belong to?
How does do they shape your identity?

On Loyalty

Families often create double binds for their members. Situations in which members are presented with two irreconcilable positions. Suzanne’s mother used to say, “Friends will come and friends will go, but family is forever.”

How did this “lesson” create a double bind for Suzanne? What were the choices she was confronted with?
How did it shape the family’s roles and responsibilities?
How does the sudden death of Suzanne’s father stress the family’s hierarchical structure?
Often in the face of crisis, loyalty is challenged. How did Suzanne’s mother’s Alzheimer’s disease challenge the family’s functioning?

Share Your Story:

Are there double binds exist in your own family? If so, how do you navigate them?
How do you find balance between loyalty to yourself and loyalty to your family?

On the Conversations They Never Had

The inability or unwillingness to have the hard conversations is a theme that plays itself out over and over again in the book. In Chapter 2, First Signs, Suzanne describes a moment when her mother begins to show signs of what will eventually become Alzheimer’s disease. Despite the family’s worry, they struggle to confront the mother’s vulnerability, to have the hard conversations.

What is the impact of that decision?
What holds them back?
What do you think they were afraid of?

Share Your Story:

Human relationships are difficult. Every family has challenges. Are there conversations you need to have in your own family? With whom and about what?
What keeps you from having them?

On Memory

THE CARDINAL CLUB is set against the backdrop of Suzanne’s mother’s Alzheimer’s disease, a disease that affects memory and cognitive functioning. Memory is an important metaphor, as the very essence of identity is tied to our historical memory.

What prompts Suzanne to write THE CARDINAL CLUB?
How does her mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s Disease challenge the family’s collective memory?
How do Suzanne’s siblings’ memories shape their own experience?

As she stands in front of the Christian Boltanski exhibit at the Guggenheim, Suzanne is struck by the artist’s effort to remind us that we each carry with us the people who have come before?

Share Your Story:

How do you choose to remember the people from your past?
What traditions, beliefs, values do you carry with you?

On Tackling Family Myths

In the forward to her memoir, Suzanne writes: “As I peeled back the layers of my own life, I began to see things I had not seen before. I was forced to confront family myths that I’d always held to be true. I discovered that what I’d believed to be the whole truth of my family story was only partially true; that there were things I chose not remember.”

What does she mean by this?
How does choosing not to remember serve her?

Share Your Story:

Are there unspoken agreements in your family? Stories or family myths that you believed that may not have been true?
Are there things you, the reader, choose not to remember? If so, why? What holds you back?
How might facing your truth shape your own understanding?

On Acceptance

The subtitle of the book is A Daughter’s Journey to Acceptance. In the prologue, Suzanne states, “I began my journey with one story. I ended with another.”

What was Suzanne looking for? What did she find?
Where does she begin her search? How does she measure acceptance? Why is it so important to her?
What lessons did she need to learn? How does her story change?

Share Your Story:

What are the things you struggle to accept?
Where do you look to find acceptance?
How can you stay open to a different story?

On Love and Compassion

At the end of the book, Suzanne writes: “I have come to understand that my mother did the best she could. It has taken me a long time to accept that. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to give me what I needed. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.”

How does Suzanne arrive at this understanding?
What choices does she need to make in order to get there?
How does this realization create an opening for something different?

Share Your Story:

Think about someone with whom you struggle. How might you hold compassion for them?
What might this mean? What would you need to let go of?
How might this decision create an opening for something new?

About the Author

Throughout her 30 year career as a licensed clinical social worker, Suzanne Maggio has helped hundreds of families improve their relationships by encouraging them to open their hearts and share their stories. She now trains the new generation of helpers as a university lecturer in Psychology, Counseling and Social Work. The granddaughter of Italian immigrants, she grew up understanding the importance of family and the pleasures of gathering around a dining room table laden with good company and delicious food. Passionate about travel, cooking and sports, Suzanne is an avid baseball fan. She attended her first New York Mets baseball game at the age of eight with her grandfather, a former sports writer from Italy. In 2016 she won a silver award from Travelers Tales for “Yo Soy,” a story about the search for identity while traveling in Nicaragua. Her work has also been published in Sonoma Family Life, an award winning parenting magazine and Junior Baseball Magazine. Her essay, ULTREIA, will be published later this year in the Adelaide Literary Award Anthology. THE CARDINAL CLUB - A DAUGHTER’S JOURNEY TO ACCEPTANCE is her first book.

She lives in Northern California with her husband, where they raised their two sons and where they now manage two rambunctious dogs and a brood of demanding chickens.