48 pages • 1 hour read
Julie ClarkThe Last Flight
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Claire and Eva, although from quite different backgrounds, share many characteristics. Drawing on both characters, discuss what the novel suggests constitutes an empowered woman.
Explore what Kelly and Liz offer to Claire and Eva, respectively. What is the nature of each woman’s friendship with these two basically strangers? Use these friendships to suggest how the novel defines empathy versus sympathy.
Compare and contrast the characters of Rory Cook and Dex/Fish. What do they have in common? Does either male character evidence any redeeming qualities? Are they characters or caricatures?
How does the novel define escape? Consider the journeys of Claire and Eva. Does Eva sacrifice her life to ensure Claire’s freedom?
The author acknowledges the book began not as a thriller but as a response to the #MeToo movement. Research that movement and the women who came forward and the price they each paid. How does Claire handle her decision to come forward? Explicate the scene in the CNN studio when Claire at last finds her voice. Compare that to Eva’s epiphany as she boards the doomed airplane.
Explore step by step how Eva comes to be entangled in the underworld of San Francisco’s drug world. Are the decisions she makes hers? Is she being used? Should she take more responsibility for the poor decisions she made?
The novel splits its focus between Eva and Claire and between two different time periods. Why not tell the story more straightforwardly? Does the narrative structure contribute to the novel’s themes or does it detract?
The novel explores the question of identity and how it is shaped against and around difficult circumstances. As you read the novel, which character—Claire or Eva—succeeds in understanding who she is?
The bluebird ornament that Liz gifts Eva introduces the idea of happiness. Reread that chapter (Chapter 20). Are any of the novel four major women—Liz, Kelly, Eva, Claire—happy. Who comes closest? Is happiness, according to the novel, even possible for women?
Perhaps the most mysterious figure in the novel is Danielle, Liz’s daughter and to some extent Claire’s savior. What do we learn about her? Why does she come forward when she does? Is her previous silence too damning to see her character is any heroic light? What does the novel say about those who know about abuse but do nothing?
