Just Checking [Paperback]

As my friend the heroin addict says, You're only as sick as your secrets.
Emily Colas -- young, intelligent, well-educated wife and mother of two -- had a secret that was getting in the way of certain activities. Like touching people. Having a normal relationship with her husband. Socializing. Getting a job. Eating out. Like leaving the house. Soon there was no interval in her life when she was not
just checking
This raw, darkly comic series of astonishing vignettes is Emily Colas' achingly honest chronicle of her twisted journey through the obsessive-compulsive disorder that came to dominate her world. In the beginning it was germs and food. By the time she faced the fact that she was really losing it, Colas had become a slave to her own hobbies -- from the daily hair cutting to incessant inspections of her children's clothing for bloodstains.
A shocking, hilarious, enormously appealing account of a young woman struggling to gain control of her life, this is Emily Colas' exposé of a soul tormented, but balanced by a buoyance of spirit and a piercing sense of humor that may be her saving grace.Reading Group Guide
The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for discussion for Emily Colas'Just Checking.We hope that these ideas will enrich your discussion and increase your enjoyment of the book.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why do you think Emily Colas wrote this book as a series of vignettes? Do you think it would have been as effective had the book been written in narrative form? If so, why?
2. None of the people inJust Checkingare referred to by name. They are all identified by their relation to the author (e.g. my husband, my friend the heroin addict ). Why? What does this say about the author?
3. What is your impression of Emily Colas's husband? How does he handle his wife's condition? If she were single, do you think lC>