"Chlorine" by Jade Song

“Mermaids were beautiful, and was I not also beautiful? Alluring? A creature of the water? Not of salt like the mermaids in the book, but of chlorine.”

Themes: Coming-of-Age; Race; Class; Sexuality; Gender; Mother-Daughter Relationship; Body (Image); Monstrosity; Myth; Belonging; Nationality; Identity

Discussion Questions:

1. What did Cathy’s epistolary parts add to the story? Did their insertion feel natural?

2. What do you think happened to Ren at the end of the story?

3. How was the story shaped by the presence and/or absence of Ren’s father?

4. Ren’s mother teaches her to sew, and then Ren mutilates herself using what her mother taught her. In what ways does this reflect—and indeed encapsulate—their mother-daughter dynamic?

5. If Ren’s transformation is a metaphor for something, what is it? Queerness, race, gender?

6. Ren mythologizes herself, inserting her story into the long history of mermaids. How do the stories we tell about ourselves shape our future? At what point did the story Ren told about herself become dangerous?

7. Is Coach Jim enough of a character to be a real villain? Or is he more of a caricature of the villainous forces he represents?

8. What did you think of Jade Song’s treatment of sexual assault in this novel?

9. Sometimes as the narrator, Ren speaks directly to the reader. Who is Ren’s audience? Who is the “you”?

10. What does chlorine represent to Ren? In the novel? Why do you think Jade Song chose this as the title?

11. In what ways are femininity and masculinity explored and contested (with regard to body/myths/family)?

12. What did Ess represent? What purposes did their character serve?

13. The idea of belonging is explored throughout the book: belonging in America as a child of immigrants, as an Asian-American; differences in class on the swim team; belonging in the swim team in general; etc. What explorations did you find strong or weak? How does Ren's intersectional struggle to belong cause/relate to her later mutilation and departure?

14. How does Ren’s bodily mutilation fit into female body horror canon, especially that of recent years? Is it a feminist resistance? What does it reclaim or contradict?