Discuss the narrative as a disability novel. We have a narrator with aphasia and an assortment of physical tics. Does the Tourette’s add or detract from the conventional detective novel? Do you find the passages comic or cruel? Does it matter that the author himself does not have the condition?

Discuss the title. Does it apply to more than Minna’s gang from the orphanage? How does it help understand Lionel’s coming of age narrative and his struggle for identity?

Research Buddhism as a religion and a philosophy. How does the novel juxtapose Buddhism against Western thought and its faith in understanding and its emphasis on solution? How does Buddhism illuminate Lionel’s growth as a character?