Skip to Main Content

About The Book

“A riveting new novel” (Kirkus Reviews) about finding evil close to home and how far a woman will go to protect her family: Named one of “The Top 10 Things We Love This Week” by Entertainment Weekly.

Growing up in the 1960s in one of California’s most prominent political families, Natalie Askedahl worshipped her big brother, Bobby, a sensitive math prodigy who served as her protector and confidante. But after Bobby left home at sixteen on a Princeton scholarship, something changed between them. Now that Natalie has a career and a family of her own, her only real regret is losing Bobby.

Then, a bomb explodes in the middle of her seemingly ideal life. Her oldest daughter is on the Stanford campus when one person is killed and another maimed. Other attacks follow across California. Frightened for her family, Natalie grows obsessed with the case of the so-called Cal Bomber, until she makes an unthinkable discovery: the bomber’s manifesto reads alarmingly like the last letter she has from Bobby. Unsure of whom to sacrifice and whom to protect, Natalie is confronted with a terrible choice. As her life splits irrevocably into before and after, she begins to learn that some of the most dangerous things in the world are the stories we tell ourselves.

“An intense, provocative novel...Golden State will resonate with anyone who’s ever watched a loved one self-destruct” (People). As Los Angeles Magazine said about author Stephanie Kegan: “You’ve got our attention.”

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for Golden State includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Stephanie Kegan. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.


Introduction

Golden State is a haunting novel by Stephanie Kegan about the choices we make, the loyalties we owe our families, and how fragile the foundations of an ordinary life can be. A fifth-generation Californian and the youngest of three children, Natalie enjoys an idyllic view of her past and a happy present as a wife, mother, and teacher. Then the unthinkable happens: Natalie is thrust into overnight notoriety when her beloved but erratic older brother is accused of committing a series of heinous crimes. Natalie is forced to make decisions that pit her loyalty to brother, sister, and mother against her need to protect her husband and children. Uncertain where her choices will lead, Natalie must endure the harsh judgment of the national media as she comes to terms with her past and a future she never imagined.  

Topics & Questions for Discussion 

l. In the opening of the novel, Natalie thinks that there is no special day of remembrance, “no sad, sweet, shared mourning for those who were not dead, but simply gone.” What do you think Natalie means by this? How has the absence of her brother impacted her life? When a close family member changes radically from the person you knew, does it change your feelings for him or her? If so, why and in what ways?
 
2. Natalie’s discovery places her in a crushing moral dilemma. If you suspected a family member of committing a crime, how would you react? Discuss the possibilities with your book group.
 
3. The crisis that befalls Natalie and her husband, Eric, produces a rift in their marriage that comes to a head when Eric refuses to go on 60 Minutes with Natalie. What do you think about Eric’s stance? And Natalie’s? Is her loyalty is misplaced? Would Eric think differently if it were his brother in jeopardy? Throughout the crisis, Natalie is torn between the needs of her family with Eric and what her mother, sister, and brother need from her. What do you think of the way she handles this dilemma? Whose position do you most identify with and why?
 
4. Discuss what you think about Natalie’s mother and her relationship with Natalie. In what ways do you think brother Bobby impacted their relationship? Do you think the mother bears any blame for the situation with Bobby? If so, why? Natalie and Bobby have very different views of their father. What is your view of the father and his role in the family’s difficulties?
 
5. Natalie says, “I came from a long line of dreamers, of storytellers, and the most dangerous stories we told were about ourselves. What does Natalie mean by this? What are the dangerous stories Natalie tells herself? At one point in the novel, she seeks forgiveness from a victim’s mother. How does this behavior reflect the story she tells herself? What were the dangerous stories other members of her family told? Could what happened in Natalie’s family happen to any family, or was hers in some way unique?
 
6. Natalie tells her daughter Julia that mental illness isn’t like the chicken pox. “It can be really hard to see in your own family.” Do you think there was an active denial of Bobby’s mental illness in Natalie’s family, and if so, why? What is the role that each family member played in the denial? If they had been able to confront Bobby’s mental illness, would the story have had a different outcome? Discuss whether you think the family bears any responsibility in the case of a mentally ill family member who commits a terrible crime. Why are families slow to recognize the signs of mental illness, opting to stay in denial even when a loved one exhibits behavior harmful to himself? Is there anything we can or should do as a society to help a family in this situation?
 
7. How do you think Natalie’s family history impacts her relationship with her daughters? Once Bobby is arrested, Natalie is in the difficult position of explaining this situation to her children. If you were facing her situation, how would you handle it? At what point in your family history would you begin? How would your explanation differ depending on the ages of the children? Did you agree with the way Natalie framed it to her daughters?
 
8. Natalie seems to be a person who guards her privacy. She tells us that she “tore the address labels from magazines I discarded because I was afraid of strangers knowing too much.” Yet she speaks about her family and their history to a reporter from Time. What do think about that decision? What do you think in general about her decisions to appear in the media and what that says about her? The media plays a substantial role in Golden State. How did the media influence or manipulate public opinion during the course of Bobby’s trial?
 
9. Natalie and Sarah have a very complex relationship. How does their relationship grow and change throughout the narrative? Do they seem more accepting of each other? Do you believe they will continue their relationship once the trial is over, and if so, why?
 
10. Discuss Natalie’s decision to take the stand. What influenced this decision, and how did she feel about it? How do you think you would feel if you had to make a similar choice?
 
11. Our society is fascinated by criminal trials, and notorious cases are frequently discussed on the news and in other media. Why do you believe this is the case? Have you ever followed a national trial closely? If yes, why? What do you believe this fascination says about our collective values?
 
12. Natalie learns that some mainstream thinkers had dared to say that while they abhorred Bobby’s tactics, they thought “his critique of contemporary society was dead-on.” What do you think of Bobby’s critique of contemporary society? Can you, for example, relate to Bobby’s desire to live in a world with less technology? Do you think that the devices of technology have caused us to lose any personal freedom?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. Golden State delves into Natalie’s family’s history and explores her relationship with her native state. Explore your family’s history, why your forebears came to live where they did, as well as your relationship with where you live. Interview older family members, research your lineage, and uncover three or four facts you never knew about. Share your findings with your book club.
 
2. Challenge yourself to a technology detox. Try to go twenty-four hours without your cellphone, Internet, or television. How did this experience affect your daily routine? How did it make you feel? Did this experiment leave you with a better sense of technology’s impact your daily life?   
 

A Conversation with Stephanie Kegan 

What initially sparked the idea for you to write Golden State

It was more like several sparks that ignited into one. I’ve always been interested in sibling relationships, the impact of siblings on our lives, and stories about siblings who turn out dramatically different from each other. Over the years, I’ve also been struck by the agony of ordinary families thrust into the headlines by a son who’s committed an awful crime. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s wondered what it might be like to be in their place. On another track: I was educated in the California public schools when they were considered the best in the nation and college tuition was nearly free. It pains me today that California kids don’t have that kind of opportunity. These threads coalesced into the idea of a novel that would touch on the loss of the California dream through the shattered dreams of one California family—a family with a son who does something terrible.

The novel carries quite an emotional punch. How did the writing of it affect you?  

At times, I found myself getting really upset over some of the material. It’s painful to open yourself up to how fragile even the most seemingly secure life can be. The writing brought up my own fears of what I could lose in the blink of eye. I remember thinking: Why am I sitting down every day and doing this to myself?

Your background is in journalism. What drew you to this field and what inspired you to transition from journalism to novels? Do you see these forms as fundamentally different, or were there similarities that surprised you?  

When I started out, I wanted both to write and to make a living from writing. Not so easy. But journalism gave me a way to do that. It also taught me how to tell a story and how to listen to one. Aside from the obvious differences between journalism and fiction, I think good writing is good writing. As a reader, I want to be caught up in a story that challenges me in some way. I get that out of the best journalism as well as from fiction. I don’t see these forms as fundamentally different, nor do I think of myself as having transitioned from journalism to novels. I see myself as a writer who has the great good fortune at this point in her career to write novels.

What is your writing process like? Do you create a detailed outline, or do you let the characters and the plot determine the course of the narrative?  

This book was really determined for me by the characters. When I started, I knew only two things. One was that the main character would be a wife and mother who discovers that the murderer in the news is her estranged brother. The other was that the family had some connection to California history. My first task when I started writing was to figure out the brother’s crime. It took me a while, but I finally hit upon a mail bomber. That decision sent the story in a certain direction. The same was true about the choices with the other characters. What the father did for a living, for example, and Natalie—and so on. I also discovered the characters—and by extension the novel—in the writing of scenes. For example, I’d put two characters in a room and let them define themselves in interaction. Sometimes they went in a completely different direction than I’d planned.

Natalie and Sarah are very different, very complex individuals. Which sister do you relate the most with?  

I suppose that Natalie is more like me. She leads a relatively conventional life. She’s a wife and mother. I feel great empathy with her. She’s pulled in so many directions, trying to balance the needs of her own family while she deals with the crisis in her original family. A part of her just wants to get out from under, but she understands that might never happen. As Bobby’s sister, she also carries a heightened awareness that children can be lost. That said, there’s a lot of me in Sara. I was the oldest child in my family and somewhat oblivious to the lives of my younger siblings. Like Sara, I just wanted to get out of the house and go places.

Bobby is responsible for terrible crimes, yet he is in some ways sympathetic, at least to Natalie. How did you handle the challenge of writing that character?  

Certainly Bobby was the most difficult character in the novel for me to write. I was lucky in that I had some brilliant—and very kind—people in my extended family. So I had that experience to draw on in describing the impact of Bobby’s intelligence on Natalie. From the start, I knew that Bobby was going to develop a grave mental illness—he’s a paranoid schizophrenic. My challenge was to make his behavior consistent with that illness, but not so obvious that everyone could see it. Although his tactics are odious, I had to make his philosophy seem reasonable. The hardest scenes for me to write were the two of Bobby and Natalie meeting in the jail room. Bobby had to seem crazy and sane, unrepentant about his crimes and yet not fully aware of their implications. He had to be someone new to Natalie and yet familiar.

What kind of research did you do for the novel?  

Obviously, I researched the Unabomber case and the issues surrounding his trial—chiefly the conflicts imposed on our justice system when the defendant is both a terrorist and insane. But I also researched other cases: Timothy McVeigh, who was the Oklahoma City Bomber; Zacarias Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to kill US citizens in the 9/11 attacks; the Fort Hood shooter and Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Hasan; and John Phillip Walker Lindh, known as the American Taliban. Shot in the Heart, Mikal Gilmore’s wrenching portrait of his family and his relationship with his brother Gary Gilmore, was a valuable resource. Of course, I researched how the federal court worked and issues surrounding the death penalty, including the drugs used in lethal injection. But Golden State is primarily a family story, so I did a lot reading on mental illness and how families can deny the illness in their midst. One book I found particularly helpful was The Normal One, by Jeanne Safer, Ph.D., which addresses the psychological impact of being the “normal” sibling of a damaged brother or sister. Since Natalie’s family story was intertwined with the history of the California, I also had to get my state history right.

As evidenced from the title, Golden State is intrinsically linked to its setting. What influenced your decision to tie Natalie’s family history so closely to California’s history?  

I was thinking of California both in the sense of an actual place and as a metaphor—as a container, if you will, for the American dream. In my research of these types of killers, I saw the same characteristics repeat themselves: rage, alienation, black-and-white thinking, and desire for identity. My interest was how this person might develop in an ordinary family. I tied Bobby’s family so closely to the California dream because I wanted it to be clear that Bobby’s violence in some ways was directed at them. Although Bobby is a domestic terrorist with a relatively coherent philosophy, his deepest rage is toward himself and his family. His violence gives him a way to escape facing his mental illness and the loss of the life he might have led. It gives him an identity and supplies him with what he needs to make sense of everything: outside enemies. Golden State is at base about family and the ways in which families mirror the culture they live in.

In what ways did your family’s experience in California and your own relationship with the state influence the novel?  

When my father was a teenager during the Depression, he and some buddies hopped a freight train from North Dakota one summer and rode the rails to Southern California. They slept in orchards, ate fruit from the trees, and swam in the ocean. As a kid, I loved listening to that story and hearing the wonder in his voice at what he described as seeing paradise for the first time. He had to return to his life in North Dakota, but his direction was set. We moved to California from the Midwest when I was four years old. My parents used the GI Bill to buy a midcentury-modern ranch-style house in a brand new subdivision in Southern California. My father told me I could go to any college I wanted so long as it was a California public university. I chose Berkeley, where kids really did arrive on Greyhound buses with practically no money in their pockets to attend one of the best universities in the country. I grew up under that dream, benefited from it, and I’ve seen it move further and further out of reach for ordinary families like mine. So that experience certainly influenced the novel.

About The Author

Photograph by Lesley Bohm

Stephanie Kegan is a freelance writer who has been published in Self, Los Angeles Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times. A native of Southern California, she earned her BA in history from UC Berkeley and attended Journalism School at the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles with her family. Golden State is her first novel.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (February 17, 2015)
  • Length: 304 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781476709338

Browse Related Books

Raves and Reviews

“Kegan’s masterful, stirring portrait of familial love raises moral questions that’ll have you twisting in your seat, asking yourself,'What would I do?'"

– Will Allison, New York Times bestselling author of Long Drive Home

“In prose more readable and brisk and light-filled than any I’ve read in a long time, Stephanie Kegan has created an intimate portrait of a woman whose lifelong love of her big brother can’t be compromised even by his monstrous crimes. Golden State is a moral story of the supremacy of love over law, rendered moving by the tenderness of the ordinary domestic day-to-day life wherein these atrocities come to be revealed.”

– Louis B. Jones, author of Particles and Luck

“Stephanie Kegan’s Golden State signals the arrival of an exciting new voice in contemporary American fiction. Here is a California novel like no other, where an influential family’s turbulent legacy, and one woman’s decision, ultimately shapes the destiny of an entire state. In a landscape that is at once as serene and Edenic as it is volatile and combustible, Kegan’s writing is deft, finely calibrated, and emotionally resonant. With a cast of characters that feel so familiar they could be our own kin, nothing is spared here as we witness the lengths Natalie Askedahl—wife, mother, sister—will go to in order to protect the ones she loves most."

– Alex Espinoza, author of Still Water Saints and The Five Acts of Diego León

“What would you do if you suspected your beloved brother was the man responsible for a string of college campus bombings? In this intense, provocative novel, a Berkeley woman’s response to that dilemma nearly destroys her life. Her wrenching experience will resonate with anyone who’s ever watched a loved one self-destruct.”

– People Magazine

“Golden State raises interesting questions about the family, love, and honor. … If you’re looking for your next book club pick, Golden State is sure to provoke an intense discussion.”

– Review District

"You’ve got our attention."

– Los Angeles Magazine

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images