1. Discuss the ways in which the narrator's physical, intellectual, and sexual identity are shaped over the course of the novel. What are the defining events of his development? How has he changed by time Rafaniello takes flight?

2. "In spring I was still a child and now I'm in the middle of things I can't understand," the narrator of God's Mountain reveals (p. 128). What things is he referring to? What, if any understanding of the events surrounding him has he come to by the end of the story?

3. What role does Maria play in the narrator's life? What is she seeking from him? Why does she say that their love is, "an alliance, a combative force."? (p.105) Against whom are they allied? What binds them together?

4. "Not everything is good about my body growing. Something evil grows up alongside it… a bitter force capable of violence…Is this what men suddenly become?" the narrator asks himself (p. 155). Do you think he has arrived at an answer by the end of the story? Why or why not?

5. Why has the author set this story among the winding alleys and high perches of the town of Montedidio? How does the narrator's perception of his town differ from Rafaniello's? His father's? What about Maria's? How do economic circumstances affect the lives of these characters?

6. Language and voice play a central part in the development of the young narrator. How does his writing practice contribute to your understanding of him as a character? What about his understanding of himself? Why does his voice emerge only at the very end of the novel?

7. This story includes a Jerusalem-bound shoemaker with wings beneath his hump, a boomerang that may have been carved from the Ark of the Covenant, and a carpenter who likes to fish. Discuss the significance of these and other religious motifs in the novel.

8. Why do you think the name of the narrator is never revealed to the reader?

9. Is God's Mountain is a coming-of-age story? A fairy tale? A religious allegory? All of these? Why or why not?