Reader’s Guide

On Bittersweet Place

1. What meaning does belonging in “this new country,” America, have for Lena? For her family? What meaning does Belilovka have for Lena and her family?

2. Different types of prejudice are woven through On Bittersweet Place. Which characters feel intolerance for others or judge other people? Do Chaim and Reesa view prejudice in the same way?

3. What role do decisions play in the novel? What do you think of Abie’s and Ida’s decision? What do you imagine the future holds for them? What do you think of Lena’s choice about Max?

4. Discuss the parent and child relationships in the book. Reesa says, “A mother knows her child.” How much do parents and children really know about each other’s lives?

5. Reesa tells Lena, “Everyone in their life is searching for luck.” How does luck factor in the novel? In life?

6. On Bittersweet Place explores displacement and survival. What are the other themes in the book? What role do love and loss play in the story? What are Lena’s views about love? How do other characters view love?

7. What does the novel say about family loyalty and responsibilities? What happens to the Czernitski family’s close bonds by the end of the book?

8. Lena and Simon have secrets. Other characters do, too. Lena thinks, “But sometimes secrets are essential and can’t be helped.” Is she right? How do secrets function in the novel? In life?

9. How does Lena resolve her fears and challenge? Which characters help?

10. What do art and drawing mean to Lena? How do Lena’s drawings “save” her?

11. What has Lena learned about herself and about life at the end of the novel?

Reader's Guide for Schools, On Bittersweet Place

By Mark Santangelo 

This assignment is due on the first day of class, Tuesday, September 5. It can be turned in that day or emailed to me.

This novel presents the story of a teenage immigrant girl, Lena Czernitski, a Jewish immigrant from Russia living in Chicago with her family in the 1920s. As Lena grows older and comes to maturity, the crises within her family force her to develop an identity of her own, not just defined by her parents and other relatives. The novel is also very much intended to be a commentary on the experience of immigration and the sense of “outsiderness” felt by many who come to the United States. In this way, it shares a long history with various critiques of the immigration experience in this country, written over the past century and more.

What makes this novel particularly notable is its focus on the specifics of a particular Jewish experience. Lena’s family is not very religious (Uncle Abie being a major exception, and perhaps Lena’s mother as well), but Lena is judged by those around her due to the specifics of her ethnicity and background, and her family’s livelihoods, food, living conditions and worldview are shaped as much by their Jewishness and their Yiddish language/culture as by anything they find in their new country.

One wonders, though: how unique are these experiences to Lena’s time, place, and ethnicity?

Specifically, how would the novel differ if the author’s intent had been to focus on a Muslim protagonist instead of a Jewish one?

A family with origins in Pakistan rather than one from Russia?

A family in the early 21st century instead of the early 20th century?

Would the differences be major or minor? Fiction is an excellent medium for exactly this kind of contemplation and “what if” thinking.

1. Your task is to talk to members of your own family about the immigration experience in the modern US, and think about what you already see around you.

2. And then you are to come up with a bullet-point list of similarities and differences between Lena’s family’s (fictional) story and that of your own family members in contemporary times.

3. Each item on your list will refer to something specific in the text (include page numbers).

4. The complete assignment will have at least five items of similarity and five items of difference.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck, and have fun!