Discussion Questions for A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

1. Have you read Homer’s Iliad? The Odyssey?  Did you know much about the Trojan War?  Did reading this book change your understanding of that time period?
2. What did you think about the male characters?  Were you able to have any sympathy for any of them?
3. A Thousand Ships was shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction, which “aim[s] … always to celebrate women’s creative achievements and international writing, whilst also stimulating debate about gender and writing, gender and reading, and how the publishing and reviewing business works.”  Aside from being about women, how does the book represent the values of the Women’s Prize?
4. In an interview, Haynes says that she wanted to start with the Trojan Horse, because everybody knows about it, and then go backwards and forwards in time to show the lead-up to it and the consequences of it.  Did that approach work for you?  In what ways?
5. She also speaks about balancing humor and tragedy in her writing.  Did you feel that she struck a good balance, or did some of the humorous chapters feel off-key after the intense drama of other chapters?
6. This story is told from many different perspectives.
   1. Did you like hearing from so many different characters?  How would the story have been different if Haynes had focused on only a few characters?
   2. Was there a character whose voice you liked more than the others?
   3. Which character did you like least?
   4. Did you prefer the human characters over the godly characters, or vice versa?  Why?
   5. Haynes says that Cassandra and Penelope were two of her favorite characters to write.  Did their voices seem different to you than the others?

For more questions, check out the Princeton Book Review resources.

Want to share your own questions with us?