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INTRODUCTION

Percy Turner has begun her seventh summer working in a fire tower deep in the Canadian woods. She spends her days scanning for smoke, isolated from the world, her friends, her family, her entire life. She is used to spending her summers in isolation and she usually takes comfort in the time alone.

But this summer is different. Not only can she bring her cellular phone to her secluded cabin, but she has internet access, a link to the outside world. Intrigued by the voice of a man in a nearby fire tower, Percy begins a correspondence that forces her to question everything she believes about herself and the world she has created. Travelling in time from the fire tower to her childhood in a trailer park, Percy looks back on the lies of her family, her relationship with Marlea, her best friend and sometimes lover, her place in the world, and the kind of life she wants to live. Haunted by the ghosts of her past and, unsure of her future, Percy begins a summer of reflection that changes her life forever.

ABOUT PEARL LUKE

Pearl Luke spent summers working in Canadian fire towers while completing her master's degree in English literature. Her short fiction and essays have been published in several literary magazines and anthologies, and she is a regular contributor to the Calgary Herald. Burning Ground is her first novel and it has received much praise; it was a Commonwealth Prize finalist for Best First Book. Luke lives in Calgary, Alberta and on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Praise

"A story of smoldering, unrequited love...Resonant characters, fascinating fire lore, and scenes of family life that will raise primal emotions in many readers."—The Globe and Mail, Toronto

"Vivid...very appealing."—USA Today

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Coming-of-age narratives are traditionally thought to be stories of adolescents, when the main character learns the harsh truths of the adult world. Burning Ground is a sort of coming-of-age novel even though Percy is nearly thirty years old when the narrative takes place. How does the book reconcile having an adult narrator in this sort of story? Do you think Percy learns to be an adult during the course of her childhood or when she is older?
   

2. The present of Burning Ground takes place in the Canadian woods, and the cabin and the fire tower are very important to Percy. For her, what does spending her summers in this secluded space mean? What does she accomplish during her times alone? Why does she keep going back year after year?
   

3. Percy begins her story with the first letter to Gilmore. Explain their relationship and why Percy feels so passionately about it before it even begins. Given Percy's initial obsession with Gilmore, were you surprised when her relationship with Marlea turned into something sexual?
   

4. Discuss the relationship between Percy and Marlea. How did this novel change your views on love between two women verses love between a man and a woman? How did it change your views on sexuality? Is it possible for Percy to love Marlea in the same way that might love Gilmore? Why or why not?
   

5. Throughout her childhood, Percy spends a lot of time unraveling the lies that she has been told by her family. Identify these lies. Why did her family find it necessary to hide so many things from her? How does Percy react to the truths she finds? Is she better for knowing the truth or would her life have been better had she never found out?
   

6. Discuss Percy's interest in underground fires. Why is she drawn to them and why does she risk her life at the end of the novel to see one in person? What is she trying to accomplish? Is she successful?
   

7. Percy has a very sorted sexual past. Discuss each of the lovers that she has throughout the book. What do these relationships have in common? How are they different? Do any of them make her truly happy?
   

8. When she is a child, Percy and her mother have a very strained relationship. How is her mother different from Mrs. Dunn and Mrs. Miller, the other mothers in the novel? How does Percy rely on Mrs. Dunn and Mrs. Miller to fill the void she believes her own mother has left? And how does her relationship with her mother change over time?
   

9. What is the significance of Percy's father? Why is it important that Uncle George is truly her biological father? How does Percy handle that information? How does it change the way she views her entire family?
   

10. What about Gilmore makes Percy feel so intensely about him when she has never even met him? How does their anonymous correspondence seem so easy when everything else is so difficult? In the modern world, meeting someone over the Internet is frowned upon. Is Percy's correspondence with Gilmore different than any other cyber-relationship? Can we really believe that Gilmore is as good as he seems to be?
    

11. When Percy is walking to the underground fire, she meets a bear in the road. What about her encounter with the bear amazes her? How does it change her views on her own life?
    

12. During the course of the novel, Percy cuts her hand, gets electrocuted and then, at the end, she falls in the fire pit and believes that she will die. But for all her accidents, Percy is never permanently damaged. How does she reconcile this with the fact that she is constantly thinking of committing suicide? As a reader, how do you feel about her declaration at the end of the story that she would really like to live, after all? Do you believe her?
    

13. Percy ultimately decides that she does not need Marlea or Gilmore in her life to be happy. Do you believe her? Do you think that she will be able to give up either of them? Is her bond with Marlea too strong to throw away? Is her desire for Gilmore too great?
    

14. At one point Percy speaks of how she does not fit in the straight world, but the gay community will not claim her either. At this time she also says that she would not consider herself bisexual. Given this, do you think it is possible to be all three or none at all? What do you make of Percy's ambiguous sexuality?