1. Compare the characters of Ty and Dakota. How do they handle their emotions? What consequences has their past had on their ability to be in a loving relationship? What do they learn from one another, and how does each change over the course of the novel?

2. How does Ty fit into the stereotype of the American cowboy? Do you think this stereotype is accurate?

3. Discuss your feelings about Ryder Bonte. Without knowing about his own childhood, how much is he to blame for Ty's unhappy adolescence? What is there to like or admire in Ryder? Do you, ultimately, forgive him for his treatment of Ty?

4. What do you think of Ty's mother? How is her life in town different from Ty's and Ryder's on the ranch? Do you blame her for realizing that she couldn't endure the latter? Do you think she and Ty should try harder to forge a positive relationship?

5. What impact has the death of Ty's younger brother, Ronnie, had on Ty's life? How does the piecemeal way Agee gives us information about the death affect our understanding of the incident, and of the kind of men Ty and Ryder have become?

6. We learn about Ty and Harney's assault on two Indian hitchhikers in a similar fashion—through a series of flashbacks that gradually reveal the truth. Do you like or dislike this narrative technique? How would the novel be different if the entire incident were revealed in one scene, at the beginning of the book?

7. Do you think Ty's ultimate sentence for his role in the crime—a nominal fee and a commitment to repairing the emotional damage to Bob's family—is sufficient? How might it be argued that Ty has already "served time" for the assault? How do you think his life might have been different if he had owned up to his part in the crime instead of running away?

8. Compare the scenes that take place in Minneapolis compared to those set in the Sandhills and in Kansas. How does Agee make use of the novel's settings—both out on the prairie and in the town of Babylon—to convey the novel's themes and moods?

9. Compare the courtroom scene that opens the novel to the courtroom scene that takes place on the Rosebud Reservation. How has Ty changed? What is significant about the fact that the first scene takes place in a U.S. court of law, and the second in a court presided over by Native Americans?

10. What has Agee's novel taught you about the plight of Native Americans in our country? What have you learned about life on a reservation, and about the relationships between the Indians and ranchers that inhabit Nebraska's Sandhills?