A Printable Reader's Guide to Where the Deer and the Antelope Play
The Wild Gentleman Book Club
This printable reader's guide is designed for use at The Wild Gentleman Book Club meetings. Print it, bring it, and use it to spark conversation. For a full exploration of themes and context, see our complete Reader's Guide to Where the Deer and the Antelope Play.
Key Themes for Discussion
- Belonging and Place
Offerman explores how values tend to be tied to place. Most clearly, this is evident in how we are shaped by where we come from and by the people we were influenced by in those environments, including the traditions we take for granted from our families, hometowns, and youth, such as waving to strangers. What does it mean to belong somewhere? What have we learned from the places?
- Rewilding — Land and Men
The England section explores rewilding and responsibility — restoring what's been lost. But Offerman keeps circling back to what's been lost in men, too. What have we stripped away from ourselves that might be worth recovering?
- Craft and Attention
Offerman's reverence for woodworking runs through everything he writes. He believes that making something with your hands is a form of moral seriousness.
- Marriage and Love
His partnership with Megan Mullally is the emotional core of the road trip section. What does difficulty reveal about a relationship?
Questions for Discussion
- Offerman draws heavily on Wendell Berry's idea that how we treat the land reflects how we treat each other. Do you buy that argument?
- Friendship plays a key role in the Glacier National Park section. How is the relationship between these three famous men an example of how older men's friendships should function?
- The rewilding breakdown in Cambria asks whether it's possible to restore something that's been lost. What have you lost — in yourself, in a relationship, in your community — that you think could be restored? What would that take?
- He's openly skeptical of a certain kind of American ambition — the belief that more is always better. Where do you feel that tension in your own life?
- What does his marriage say about partnership?
- Which section of the book did you like best?
- Offerman is funny in a way that never undercuts his seriousness. How does humor function in the book? What would it lose without it?
- Offerman often criticized historical atrocities and current events, often tying them together. Does this work to make the points he aims to make?
- By the end, what do you think his answer is to the question the book keeps asking — how should we live?
