1.Discuss the ways in which Jane and Martha are competitive. Do you think competition is necessary in any relationship? How is competition in friendship useful or harmful?

2.What significance does Jane's Cuban heritage have in the story? What are the economic and cultural resonances of it in her relationship with Martha?

3. Consider the Galapagos Islands. In many ways, they are populated by anomalies—species isolated for so long they have adapted to the very specific environment of Galapagos. How does that relate to people, surrounded by homogeneous friends and family?

4. The tourists have to hose off every time they get in the waters around the Galapagos to assure they do not pollute the local environment with foreign organisms. Do you think they've altered the environment just by being there? How have they changed the environment? How have the Galapagos changed them?

5. What other naturalist writers do you know of besides Charles Darwin? How has Naturalism changed since his time (1809-82)?

6.Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory states that animals and plants develop through natural selection. What does that mean? Besides physical changes through the millennium, how have humans developed through natural selection?

7. Consider friendship as a living organism. What environment does it thrive in? What slight variation in its habitat could destroy it?

8. What do you think social Darwinism is? Do you think it applies to friendship?

9. Why do you think Martha wasn't as concerned as Jane about their lost friendship—or was she?

10.Darwin kept his theories secret for twenty years. The Barlow family secret was also buried for decades. The Cornwalls had a secret, which they took to the Galapagos. Why all the secrets? What happens to all of these secrets?

11. Do you think friendship is inevitable, like procreation? Or is it an unnecessary human invention? Discuss.

12. Where do you think (or hope) Jane and Martha's relationship goes from here?