Readers' Discussion Guide
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The title, Incomplete Passes, has not only a sports connotation, but a sexual one. Did the author intend other meanings beyond these?
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Is the author successful in defining Green Bay, Wisconsin, as a unique place to live? Would you want to live or visit there? Why or why not?
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Linda has maintained ties with Pam, Del, and Carla for fifty years. Have you kept up long-term friendships like these? Did the book make you want to reconnect with old friends? She describes the women as all being very different. Were their differences apparent to you? Why have the women remained friends despite their differences? What does Linda admire—or find irritating—about each of her friends? Does she totally understand the women they have become? Which one would you most want as a friend?
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Linda says that she regards the Green Bay Packer players, the sportswriters, and even her friend Carla as heroes. Does she depend on heroes more than most people do? Are football players appropriate role models? Why do we need to follow celebrities and make them part of our lives?
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"We are products of our time," Linda says of herself and Pam. The author and her friends were born during the early years of the baby boom. How might their experiences and attitudes have differed if they had been born twenty years earlier, or twenty years later?
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Would you let your daughters have as much freedom as Linda and her friends had as teenagers? Should the girls have had more parental supervision? Did they live in a safer environment than most children do today?
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Incomplete Passes is a slender book that deals with sports and appears on the surface to be "light reading." But the author chooses words like "matriculate" and "obstreperous" that may not be part of everyone's vocabulary. Is her language appropriate for a book of this type?
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The author claims that Incomplete Passes is not really about football. Yet her involvement with the Green Bay Packers is evident throughout. If you're a football fan, did this make the book more enjoyable for you? If you've never been interested in football, did you gain an appreciation for the sport? Is Incomplete Passes primarily a sports book or a woman's coming-of-age story?
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A reader commented to the author, "Most memoirs, unlike yours, are built around a great obstacle that the author has to overcome." Is Incomplete Passes less satisfying because it doesn't center on recovery from disease, abuse, a crime, or a natural disaster? Does Linda's life journey nevertheless inspire you in some way? Has the advent of reality TV made the public more interested in the lives of "ordinary people"?
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