The Hands of Enemies - Discussion Guide
This guide is now available in a revised edition.
“An interesting conversation that makes you think.”
“So compelling I couldn’t just read through it. I had to stop and answer the questions.”
You’ve read the novel. You know it was different from anything else and loaded with substance. Maybe you’d like to use it for discussions on grief, loss and suicide. Maybe forgiveness, and truth is a dialogue you’d like to foster. This guide breaks it down with short, stimulating chapters on:
Guilt, Blame & Resentment
Forgiveness
Perspective
Thoughts & Isolation
Acceptance
Talking & Listening
Change
Losses
Gratitude
Hope
Truth
Poignant excerpts from the novel and pithy comments work together with questions to engage learners. Use this guide to create a safe place to talk about characters and their issues that are sure to find parallels with the everyday concerns of young people and parents alike.
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Talking & Listening
If I ever told anyone what I was really thinking, they’d get all quiet. Then they’d say, “You don’t mean that” or “It’ll get better.” Anytime I have a problem, my pal Dylan tells me to suck it up. Everyone’s cure for the big stuff in life is, give it time.
I do. It hasn’t. I have. And blow it out your … Page 1
Ever try talking about something meaningful to you with an important person in your life?
Ever try expressing a deep hurt?
Ever try talking about your hopes and dreams?
Ever try to share something very personal?
How’d that work for you?
A. They blew me off.
B. They didn’t hear what I was saying.
C. They told me it wasn’t that important.
D. They gave me advice I didn’t want.
E. They listened attentively and asked questions.
F. I really felt heard and validated.
G. They modified what I said to suit them.
H. They told me I really meant something else.
I. _________________________________
Have you ever felt like Brian did? When and why?
Has anyone ever said to you, “You don’t mean that?”
Have you ever heard anyone say, “It’ll get better?”
Has anyone ever politely advised you to, “Give it time?”
Has anyone ever told you to, “Suck it up?”
How accurate are these definitions?
Give it time. This will magically just go away one day.
It’ll get better. This is just temporary. La, la, la.
Suck it up. You’re a wuss. I could handle that.
You don’t mean that. You do mean that. I just don’t know
what to say or what to do.
True or False: Most people don’t know how to listen to me.
True or False: Most people get really uncomfortable when I need to
talk about personal stuff.
Which kind of person are you?
A. When people blow me off I tend to get quiet. I eventually quit trying to tell people things and just stuff it.
B. When people blow me off I get in their face and demand they listen to what I have to say.
If you were Brian would you have been more assertive and made people listen to you? Or would you have given up like he did?
It might sound spiteful, but after today, Dylan can see how it feels to suck it up for a change. Right? I feel bad about all the lying, but whatever. Page 4
As I head for the kitchen, I pass the aberration. I only look at it if I want to be pissed. I’m already pissed, so I look at it.
A portrait of America’s most well-adjusted family is right there above a credenza in the middle of the foyer. A thirty by forty-inch canvas in a walnut frame holds a photograph that looks like a hand-painted portrait of me, Mom and Dad. Rembrandt couldn’t have done better. Check out those smiles. Damn we’re happy. That portrait was the last straw. My eyes harden every time I look at it – not that anyone’s ever noticed.
Page 17
Did Brian feel he could talk to his best friend?
Did Brian feel he could talk to his parents?
Do you have anyone in your life you can talk to about deep things?
Are you a person others can speak with about deep things?
True or False: People don’t like to feel uncomfortable. They want
your problem to go away quickly so they won’t have
to deal with it.
True or False: When it comes to the big things in life, most people don’t know what to say or how to say it.
True or False: Most people do not know how to listen to – much less speak with others in times of real need.
True or False: People want to fix me and send me away.
If we “fix” someone, our discomfort goes away.
If we “fix” someone we’ve done our part.
Are these fixes?
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Consider the source.”
“You’ll grow out of it.”
“They didn’t mean that.”
“Forget them.”
“Move on.”
“Blow it off.”
“You’re just being emotional.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Get over it.”
Has anyone ever said these things to you?
Have you ever said these things to someone else?
We hear so often that we should talk to someone about our troubles, but then how often is our attempt to talk shut down by the listener’s tendency to fix us and send us on our way?
Brian felt isolated and resentful. Do you ever feel isolated or resentful for the same reasons he did?
Who do you know that can speak easily or competently about disappointment, grief, death, or loss?
Who do you know that is comfortable is listening to others speak about genuine pain?
How comfortable are you when confronted by someone in pain?
“It sounds stupid, but I didn’t really get that he (Kent) was gone forever until everyone else was getting over it. And then it was too late to bring it up because it’d just bring them back down. Now I get it. Now it’s real. Kent isn’t coming back. He’s dead.” Page 80
True or False:
Timing is everything when it comes to opening up to others.
Timing is everything for others to be receptive to us.
Is there an expiration date on another person’s ability to care?
Kent had graduated and had already died before I met Brian. I’d heard about Kent and how hard it had rocked the school when it happened. Brian didn’t talk about it. He acted like everything was fine, so like everyone else, I assumed he was over it. Page 181
How long does it take to get over the death of someone we love?
Two weeks. A month. One year. Two years.
We never get over it, we learn to live with it.
How long do others generally allow us to grieve?
Two weeks.
Why are there no other choices?
Unfortunately, the skill of listening without shutting down the person being listened to is so rare in today’s world that we often have to pay people such as counsellors and therapists to listen to us.
Is resorting to a therapist a good idea or a bad idea in times when we need someone to simply listen to us? Why or why not?
When Dylan told the team that Brian had put a gun in his mouth, I realized all the things Brian never talked about. The omissions should have caught my attention somewhere along the way. No one comes through the death of a brother that clean. Page 181
Austin is a more mature, insightful character in the story. In what ways does he talk with and listen to others differently?
“That’s not cool.”
“I know.”
“Dylan tells us you’ve changed.”
“Working on it, but yeah. I hope so.”
“Working on it and hoping sounds a little weak. You need to make that happen.” Austin’s eyes dart up to make his point. I didn’t know soft-spoken and calm could have so much power behind it. Then he doesn’t look away. This guy has me by the balls. Page 162
I put my hand on Brian’s shoulder. “You have my number. Call me anytime, day or night. Any anything.” I point sternly. “You call me.”
Brian nods. “I will. Thanks for coming. I feel kinda gutted, but you know, better. Really, guys, thanks for talking with me.”
“You and I are touching base every day and not just at lunch and not just about superficial crap. We are talking every day.”
“Got it. I know what I need to talk about. No more secrets. No more lies.” Page 180
“Remember what I said. Call me for anything anytime.” Then I think about it. “No. I’m calling you tonight and we’re talking whether you want to or not.” Page 184
How great would it be to have a persistent, empathetic friend like this in your life?
Can you be a persistent, empathetic friend to someone?
How often have you heard people say they are uncomfortable talking about difficult things because they don’t know what to say?
Body language and facial expressions are 55% of human communication. Tone of voice is 38%. Words are a mere 7%.
True or False: We can express empathy and concern without saying a word.
True or False: In times of distress, empathy and concern are he most important things a person can give us.
Is not knowing what to say a valid reason for avoiding someone else’s pain?
Do we always need to know the right thing to say?
Should we expect that others always know the right thing to say?
How often when you are simply able to talk about something have you been able to come up with your own solutions?
How often when only thinking about something do your thoughts begin to loop and you get nowhere?
When your thoughts begin to loop, do they gain energy and small problems seem to become larger than they really are?
How did Brian’s feelings of regret over Kent loop and gain intensity as they did?
How did Brian’s feelings of resentment toward his parents loop and gain intensity as they did?
How did Brian’s feelings of isolation loop and gain intensity?
Brian nods. “I will. Thanks for coming. I feel kinda gutted, but you know, better. Really, guys, thanks for talking with me.”
True or False: Talking about deep stuff isn’t easy.
True or False: Finding someone you can talk to might be hard.
True or False: Speaking forces our thoughts to be crystalized, focused and specific.
True or False: Speaking diffuses the intensity of our thoughts.
True or False: Speaking exposes illogical patterns of thinking.
True or False: Thoughts that stay trapped in the emotional part of ur brain become more acute and overwhelming with repetition.
Which characters in the story resolved their problems on their own?
Which characters didn’t ultimately need someone else?
I switch to my nice voice and try for some good will. “Guys, now I’m asking for a favor. When Brian gets back, don’t be superficial. Talk with him about real things. We can’t start avoiding him. I know it might be a little uncomfortable, but if he says he’s fine, don’t believe him. Ask him about specific things and make him answer you – really answer you. Yeah, he tried to commit suicide but that doesn’t make him a freak. What that says is that no one was there for him – including me – and I’m not very proud of that. We’re not sweeping this under the rug. Brian needs us, guys. He needs to feel like he’s still one of us and it was okay if he got a little desperate. Please don’t treat him like a freak. Please. When he gets back, let’s be a team and support him like a team, okay?” Page 165
“You just gotta get through it. Talk man. Get it out and I guarantee whatever it is won’t be so bad.” Page 75
True or False: We can show others that we care and are listening to them with the expression on our face and the position of our arms more than we can with elegant words of comfort or acceptance.
True or False: We can speak without saying a word.
True or False: We can listen without saying a word.
Symbols and symbolic thinking are huge, especially for young people that may not be as proficient expressing themselves with words as they would like to be, or when words fail.
Then I take out a couple wrinkled photos. One is an old family portrait with my parents, Dean and Dottie, me and my older brother Kent. The other one is just me and Kent sitting in the grass under a tree wearing only swim trunks and laughing. The fender of his ‘68 Mustang is off to the side.
I was fifteen in these – young, happy and thinking life is good. Page 7
These photos of Kent are symbols of Brian’s lost happy times and his most valued relationship – wrinkled from use and time. Brian keeps them in his wallet with his other secret – his suicide note. How does the keeping of significant symbols of his brother in a private place indicate how Brian has learned to handle his pain?
True or False: When we don’t speak, we get stuck.
Several years ago, a doctor, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote a book entitled, On Death and Dying. In it, she identifies five stages of grief. Although they do not necessarily happen in order, they are:
Denial. Bargaining. Anger.
Depression. Acceptance.
What stage or stages of grief do the following excerpts indicate?
Framed newspaper articles with photos of Kent running, catching, passing the ball and kneeling with the team adorn the walls. Snapshots of homecomings, proms, first dates, and friends are inserted around the dresser mirror. Page 247
All of Kent’s smiles, laughter and sparkling eyes are now photographs frozen in time. But in those snaps of a shutter, he was as real as this moment. His letter jacket hangs on his chair. His shoes sit ready at the foot of his bed. Page 248
I shouldn’t have come in here. I never take anyone in here. It’s these emotions that are making me do weird things – like standing here wiping tears from my eyes in front of this kid. I walk to the door and wait for him to walk out. Neither of us look at the other. I turn off the light and close the door. With a nod of my head, we walk down the hall in silence. Page 34
“We don’t talk about Kent. It never comes up. Ever. Did you see our family portrait?” I plaster that phony smile to my face. “Just me and Mom and Dad and damn we’re happy.” My smile fades. “It’s worse than him being dead. It’s like he never was. I hate that stinking portrait. Did you hear my dad go on and on about me last night? It’s like they just got rid of Kent and brought me in off the bench. Sometimes I want to tell my dad to shut his goddamn mouth.” Page 100
Kent’s room has become a shrine frozen in time. Is the preserved room a comfort, or is it keeping the family’s pain current, raw, and alive?
Do people have a tendency to embrace and hang on to their grief because moving on – especially from the loss of a loved one – might seem disloyal, like they didn’t love them as much as they could have or should have?
“And then Mom would make Kool-Aid just like in some corny commercial, and me and my brother would sit in the grass under the tree and just look at his car and talk about all kinds of stuff and laugh. I don’t think anything will ever be sweeter to me than that memory of him.” I nod my head nostalgically.
Page 239
“Kent was the man. Kent was my hero. I think about Kent every day. I want to talk about him. I want to tell everyone about all the stuff we did and how I loved him and idolized him. He was everything to me. God.” Page 100
“Everything about him was beautiful and the life in him was so amazing and then there was nothing left but this thing – this grotesque, horrible thing that looked like him. God, I can’t get over that. I never had anyone die before, not even a dog, and then it was the best person I’ll ever know. My brother. God I loved him.” Page 100
Brian’s memories of Kent are especially poignant. In what ways are Brian’s memories of Kent like the immaculate preserved room?
When we idolize someone in death or grieve their loss intensely, could it be that we are trying to give them the love that we feel we didn’t fully give them in life?
“I’ve never actually told anyone this. You know how there are some things you wish you take back? This is the one thing I regret most in my life.” My voice starts to crack as I continue. “I didn’t know that Kent was the best friend I’d ever have and those were the last days we’d ever have together.”
The stars are beginning to blur. I can feel William looking at me. I sniff and try to control my composure. “So, here I was, big man on campus. Tenth grade. Big deal. Me and Dylan acted like assholes all weekend. We talked and laughed and had our little secrets and we bragged about getting laid and about what studs we were and basically left Kent out of the weekend he planned for me. The whole weekend Kent just watched us carry on with this hurt look on his face. I can still see that look.
“He knew, William. He knew that that was going to be the last time it would ever be like it was. After that summer he would be different and I would be different and he just wanted that one last time with me like it was – his kid brother and him – pals. And I fucked it up.” Page 99
When we don’t speak, people make assumptions.
I breathe a couple more times and try it again. “I’d never tell you to suck it up for something like that. I would’ve talked with you. I offered to talk with you. I thought you were over Kent’s death. You never said anything.” Page 83
Brian didn’t talk about it, so like everyone else, I assumed he was over it. When Dylan told us that Brian had put a gun in his mouth on the Overlook that Friday afternoon, I realized all the things Brian never talked about. The omissions should have caught my attention somewhere along the way. No one comes through the death of a brother that clean. Page 214
Two years have passed and now everyone assumes Brian is “over it”. In our modern world we don’t allow people much time to get over things and we lose our empathy pretty quickly. It isn’t our pain or our grief so we don’t understand it.
Brian has suppressed his grief like the closed room in the home, until he felt it was too late to talk about it.
Was it too late for people to care?
Was it too late for Brian to heal?
Everyone moves at their own speed. By the end of the story, Brian is learning how to talk and others are learning how to listen.
“Any anything.” I point sternly. “You call me.”
Brian nods. “I will. Thanks for coming. I feel kinda gutted, but you know, better. Really, guys, thanks for talking with me.”
“You and I are touching base everyday and not just at lunch and not just about superficial crap. We are talking every day.”
“Got it. I know what I need to talk about. No more secrets. No more lies.” He glances toward his mother, at the empty spot on the foyer wall that used to house the family portrait, then back at me. “I’m working on it.” Page 214
“Come on, Brian. We’re not letting you off the hook on this.” Stew shakes hair out of his eyes.
“Why does it still hurt so much? It’s been two years. Why can’t I get over it?”
“But only two Thanksgivings,” Randy suggests. “It’s the day that brings it back like it just happened. And you’ll never get over it. That was your brother.”
I think a moment, then nod.
“Brian,” Stew places a hand firmly on my shoulder with a look in his eyes that I’ve come to know all too well, “you’re not keeping Kent alive by keeping your pain alive. You’re keeping him dead. Make him a part of your happiness and let him live again.” Then my truth-teller thumps his chest. Page 238
“We promised each other we’d talk about it. We’ve put it off long enough,” my best friend reminds me.
I bite my lip.
“I’m sorry. I know it hurts.”
I continue to nod and the pain I’ve come to dread creeps back into my soul.
Page 239
What skills were related in the above passages and did they have more to do with listening or speaking?
True or False: Talking about painful losses and grief isn’t comfortable for anyone, but it is necessary for healing.
True or False: If we have people in our lives that are skilled at listening and bringing feelings out of us, we can heal from anything.
Nothing changed in Brian’s life except his ability to speak about his grief and the ability of others to hear him when he did.
Just as others may make assumptions about us, we may make assumptions about them. Our go to person may not be our parents or our friends. It may be someone totally unexpected.
I’ve never opened up about this, and now this kid is the one I choose? I’m just so broken. I’m drying my eyes when William asks, “So that’s why?”
“Kinda. I don’t know. I just hurt, man.” Page 99
A lot of people don’t think they need counseling. They don’t like the implication that they are not right in their thinking. It’s a sad fact of modern life that sometimes we have to pay people that know how to listen and will allow us to talk. Counselors are trained to listen and know how to allow others to speak.
Brian was fortunate in that the people in his life learned how to become both patient and persistent. He learned how to speak.
What body language and symbols are used in this very deep but almost wordless conversation and what do they mean?
Brian pats my back and I pat his. We back away from each other.
So now we’re just standin’ here. He smiles. I do too.
I suppose we just said everything we needed to say, so we start to walk from the room. Brian guides me in front of him, takes the knob, then without looking back – pulls the door closed behind us.
We walk two more steps and he stops. “You know what?” Then he goes back and opens the door that’s always closed. He smiles. I do too. When he does stuff like that, I know my hero’s gonna be okay.
Page 249
“You just gotta get through it. Talk man. Get it out and I guarantee whatever it is won’t be so bad.”
Page 88
Author’s note:
I ain’t no phycologist and I’m not trying to be. The purpose of this guide is not to analyze, but just promote conversation. Yes, I hope to make a difference for young people who are struggling. That’s why I wrote the Speed of Light series. I hope young people will see in the characters, not only their friends and classmates, but themselves - and maybe be more understanding. I want them to know and see examples that change is possible for everyone and that suicide is not ever the answer. The healthiest thing we can do is talk to each other. I think counselling is valuable but I also know that it carries a stigma that young people are particularly sensitive about: there is something wrong with me. There really isn’t anything wrong with kids that are struggling. Life is difficult and difficulties and decisions are really concentrated in our teen years more so than at any other time in our lives. But counselling remains a stigma and suicide prevention efforts continue to push it as the only answer to teen suicide. It has never worked in my lifetime and I cannot believe it ever will.
That’s why I’ve written this conversation starter. I’d like to see the novel read in school and the guide used in classrooms. I think young people can safely talk about characters in a book, come to their own personal epiphanies, and maybe build some friendships with like minded people they come to know through that discussion.
