Interested in reading and discussing People of the Rock with your book group? Here’s a guide for discussion to start from. If you’d like to speak with the author over zoom or ask questions and get a video response to your group, just let me know, I’d be happy to contribute to your discussion. Interested in a group rate on books? "> Contact me to discuss your numbers.
Content Note: This book contains descriptions of enthusiastically consensual loving queer sex (medium spice), FF, MF and MM partnerships, multi-parent families, homophobia, a reference to past child abuse that includes a physical injury, and religious diversity including modern Pagan sprituality. I think it’s definitely appropriate for adults, and – with an adult around to ask questions and contextualize things – for teens.
Overview and main themes and ideas
People of the Rock explores ideas relating to time travel, quantum connection, gift economies/economic cooperation, ‘village-style’ parenting. queer romantic relationsips, chosen family, the impact of homophobia and acceptance on queer people and relationships, solar and renewable energy, food security, eco-building and city design and the impact of geographic isolation on identity. The book follows our protagonist Lucy on a journey into the future and back, and her growth from a passive follower in her relationships with others into an empowered leader capable of making hard choices and launching long term projects and plans. The character of Lucy is contrasted with the character of Brenda, who embraces and accepts her nature as a cantankerous person but also as a queer person, and then takes action from that acceptance. [Book blurb here]
Critical thinking about the content and book
- What does the author say about food security?
- About gift economies and economic cooperation? Have there been other cultures with similar economic models? How were they similar or different from the ones in this story?
- How might relationships change in an environment where basic needs are met at all times? How would it really work to have multiple parents?
- Does knowing the future will turn out in a specific way empower change and leadership or limit it?
Comparing your own experiences and perspectives
- What would you do if you knew in advance you would be successful?
- What kinds of behaviour in the present that you do can be expected to have long-term impact?
- What people helped raise you? How many caregivers did you have? Could you see yourself helping raise a child you did not birth?
- What forms of guaranteed livable income have you experienced or heard of? Employment insurance? CERB? How did your life feel different during these times?
In context – genre, time period, & setting
- How is this book like and unlike a science fiction novel?
- How is this book like and unlike a typical queer romance?
- What about the setting of Vancouver, Canada affects the story directly? Could this outcome happen in another location?
- How does the author’s description of queer community and the status of women correspond to the early 20th century?
Compare and contrast to other works of literature or current events
Given the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic, how realistic do you see the cultural shifts in the population and behaviour of the people the future as descrived in this book? Do you think local isolation, a pandemic, or being unable to travel easily outside of one’s region affects local culture and behaviour? Affects supply chains? Affects family behaviour?
How does this book compare to dystopian stories such as Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, or the Handmaid’s Tale? Which outcome do you think is more realistic? Are both equally possible? What differences in behaviour and outlook would contribute to each future outcome?
Compare and contrast the presentation of gift economies between People of the Rock and Braiding Sweetgrass.
Impact on their understanding of the world and their own values
Could you live in a gift economy? Would you feel your work was valued? How would you contributed to your community if you were not paid but all your basic needs were met? In what ways was your thinking changed, inspired, reinforced by this book?
Discussion and debate
What did you find inspiring about the potential future in this story? Under what conditions could this future happen? At what points in history has a single ‘regular’ person made a large difference in an outcome in a local region? Is that even possible?
Are gift economies realistic?
More Reading on:
- Gift Economies: Search terms: Freecycle, Buy Nothing Groups, Indigenous gift economies (1)(2)
- Queer families of choice and Multi-Parent Families – Search terms: platonic multi-parent families, queer familes, platonic co-parenting,
- Neighbourhood Renewable Energy
- Electric vehicles
- Municipal Bike-Sharing
- Earthen homebuilding
- Quantum entanglement
- Animism (such as the consciousness present in the Rock)
- Pagan spiritualities & Modern Paganism (Many of Lucy and Marija’s beliefs and practices are drawn from Wiccan practices)
- Voluntary Simplicity – Search terms: “voluntary simplicity” “small is beautiful” “Donut economics”
From the book
Here’s a passage from People of the Rock where Lucy, in the present, leads a discussion of leadership and change.
Like Sprouts
Lucy
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
Winston Churchill
“A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”
Winston Churchill
“Every conflict we face in life is rich with positive and negative potential. It can be a source of inspiration, enlightenment, learning, transformation, and growth – or rage, fear, shame, entrapment, and resistance. The choice is not up to our opponents, but to us, and our willingness to face and work through them. “
Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith
“One might as well try to ride two horses moving in different directions, as to try to maintain in equal force two opposing or contradictory sets of desires.”
Robert Collier
“You can’t talk your way out of something you behaved your way into. You have to behave your way out of it.”
Doug Conant (CEO of Campbell Soup, as quoted in Harvard Business Review)
“Transformation comes more from pursuing profound questions than seeking practical answers.”
Peter Block
I sit in circle with my latest seminar group, held at the Quaker meeting hall. The light pouring in the tall windows in the quiet space reminds me of Rosemary’s mud sanctuary. Will Rosemary be a Quaker? “Peter Block said that ‘the desire for comfort, ease, wealth, the desire for control, the balancing of individual greed with community interest is a tension throughout human history.’ What do you think about this quote?” I ask.
“I don’t like it,” says John. “I’m more interested in practical answers. The world is a concrete place, and the most important kind of profound questions are the practical ones to me.”
“So you think the focus on profound questions might be only an intellectual exercise?” asks Lucy.
“Yes, that’s it,” says John.
“Anyone else?”
“I agree, I don’t know what Block means by ‘profound questions’. He might be sincere, or he might just be blowing smoke,” says a woman in the second row.
“Okay, let’s try the second one by Thomas Carlyle: ‘Every noble work is at first impossible.’ What does that mean to you?”
“I like this one more, to me it means ‘don’t give up, you will find a way once you get into it.’.”
“How do you define what ‘noble work’ is?” I ask. “Let’s take ten minutes for a writing exercise. Pick one of the quotes and write whatever comes to your mind about it.” I take a break while they write. Jon is with Michael and Frank today and even better, I slept last night, so I feel well rested, but coffee is still my friend. When we come back I get them to pass their writing to the left and people read excerpts that inspire them. People’s writing is full of their passion for making the world a better place, which is exactly what I hope for. This study group is going well. After months of teaching in the collaborative style of the university of the future, I think this might be something I can do.
“How about this one: “If we don’t change the direction we are going, we are likely to end up where we are heading?”
I look around. I think the lesson of this quote is sinking in to the faces around me. “Where are we heading? Let’s set a frame for the writing you do this week at home. Close your eyes and let images come to you.” The group settles in to see the words in their mind. “Here’s where we might be heading: Global warming – the oceans rising, animals becoming extinct, the gap between the rich and the poor increasing, our health care and politics gradually eroding and becoming assimilated to an American standard that most Canadians abhor.”
“Food insecurity – The production of food getting separated from local life, it coming from elsewhere, not something we know how to provide for ourselves.”
“We can get wrapped up in the tragedy, in the problems, or we can get focused on seeing where the solutions are already popping up like seedling trees after a forest fire, whose cones opened up from the heat. Spend some time writing the worries. Then take another piece of paper out and write down solutions. You can brainstorm new ones, but don’t forget about the ones we already know about. How can we can support them, like sprouts, and make sure they get compost and sunlight and rain?”
Copyright Sophia Kelly 2025 – all rights reserved. May be used for non-profit purposes with attribution.
More Reading
- Gift Economies: Search terms: Freecycle, Buy Nothing Groups, Indigenous gift economies (1)(2)
- Queer families of choice and Multi-Parent Families – Search terms: platonic multi-parent families, queer familes, platonic co-parenting,
- Neighbourhood Renewable Energy
- Electric vehicles
- Municipal Bike-Sharing
- Earthen homebuilding
- Quantum entanglement
- Animism (such as the consciousness present in the Rock)
- Pagan spiritualities & Modern Paganism (Many of Lucy and Marija’s beliefs and practices are drawn from Wiccan practices)
- Voluntary Simplicity – Search terms: “voluntary simplicity” “small is beautiful” “Donut economics”
Foods and Music Mentioned in People of the Rock
Food
- Chicken and Bacon Sandwich
- Chocolate
- Strawberries
- Goat milk and cheese
- Quiche / Egg Pie
- Apples
- Basically anything you’d get at a farmers market
