skip navigation links

Readers > Talk it Up! > Discussion guides > 2012 Oregon Reader's Choice Award Nominees > Marcelo in the Real World

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Discussion guide by Susan Smallsreed

Summary

This summer, Arturo Sandoval declares, his son Marcelo will learn about the real world. He will work in the mailroom of Arturo's law firm. He will interact with everyone in the office. He will be normal, as Arturo has always said he is, and not have a highly functioning form of Asperger's Syndrome, as Marcelo knows he does. And Marcelo, reluctantly, must agree to his father's terms. He soon learns reality isn't easy. Wendell, the son of Arturo's partner, offers friendship to further his own ends. The law firm hides an injustice that will transform Marcelo's world. But through it all, there is Jasmine, his beautiful and tenacious coworker, his true friend - and perhaps more. Reminiscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in the intensity and purity of its voice, this extraordinary novel encompasses a legal battle, a subtle love story, and the primal coming-of-age narrative: discovering the truth of one's own capabilities.

Booktalk

What is truth? How do you tell right from wrong? What if a good person does a bad thing, does that make him bad? Marcelo has to find the answers to these questions and more when he spends the summer in the “real world” of his father’s law firm.

Marcelo’s brain works differently. He hears his internal music, and sometimes sees it as well. He can’t eat and talk at the same time. He gets lost because he gets distracted by all the things going on around him. He has to concentrate on one thing at a time. At the school he’s always gone to, Paterson, that’s not a problem, because it’s a school for kids like Marcelo—kids with “special needs.”

But he’s 17 now, and his father thinks it’s time for Marcelo to find out what the “real world” is like, the world outside Paterson, the world where his differences won’t be accepted, the world that will make him change to fit in. The world of his father’s law firm. So, because Marcelo’s father doesn’t ever change his mind once it’s made up, Marcelo will spend the summer working in the mailroom, instead of training the ponies at Paterson and getting ready for his last year at the school.

That summer job changes Marcelo in ways no one could have expected. He not only learns about the mailroom duties he’s responsible for, he also learns about jealousy and anger, about how some people lie and deceive, about how many times people say one thing and mean another. He also learns about love and friendship. He learns what trust is, and he learns that some people can be trusted and some can’t. In fact, he learns a lot more about the “real world” and how to live in it than his father ever expected him to.

Can a temporary mailroom clerk shake up a whole law firm? Learn how Marcelo sees the real world, and find out. By Joni Richards Bodart.

312 pages, 9th grade and up

Discussion questions

Warning! Some of the questions contain key elements of the plot. Do not read if you don't want to know what happens!

  1. In describing the Internal music (IM), Marcelo says: “the music is not heard with the ears.” What are some of the ways that Marcelo describes the IM? Why is it so hard for him to describe it? Marcelo tells Dr. Malone that the IM is always there when he looks for it. What happens to Marcelo’s ability to hear the IM as the summer progresses?
  2. Can you list some of the reasons why Marcelo does not want to attend a regular high school? What is it about Paterson that he likes? Why does his father want him to attend Oak Ridge High the following fall?
  3. Aurora asks Marcelo if he trusts his father. How does Marcelo trust his father and what happened to this trust as the summer developed? Marcelo says that trust is one of those abstract words that is hard for him to understand. Can you point to concrete instances where Marcelo’s ability to trust is challenged?
  4. What are some of the rules of the real world that Marcelo finds difficult? Arturo tells Marcelo that the rules of the real world deal with the way to do things in order to be successful. Do you agree that to be successful you need to follow the rules of the real world? What are some of the rules of the real world that you believe are wrong? Do you agree with Arturo that the mailroom of the law firm is more “real” than Paterson?
  5. Marcelo tells Aurora before he starts his summer job at the law firm: “suffering and death do not affect me the way they seem to affect others.” Do you think Marcelo has changed in this respect by the end of the summer? What happened to him to make him change?
  6. Aurora tells Marcelo that kids his age do not generally have the kind of thoughts he has. Do you agree? How is Marcelo different from other kids his age?
  7. Why do you think Marcelo has a problem with his father’s description of his condition as a “cognitive disorder?” Why is Marcelo reluctant to call his condition Asperger’s syndrome? Marcelo says that when he talks about his “special interest,” he can see something like a glass wall descend between him and other people. If someone told you that their special interest was God, how would you react to that person?
  8. Wendell asks Marcelo if he ever feels attracted to a female body and Marcelo answers that he does not. How does Marcelo’s sexuality evolve throughout the summer? How would you describe Marcelo’s relationship to Jasmine at different points during the summer?
  9. When Marcelo visits Rabbi Heschel towards the end of the summer, he tells her that he has stopped praying and that he has stopped reading holy books. Why did he stop? Compare Marcelo’s faith at the beginning of the summer and at the end. What happened to his special interest?
  10. If you were to ask Marcelo at the end of the summer, “How do we live with all the suffering?” What do you think he would say to you? Can you point to places in the book where you think Marcelo might have glimpsed the answer to that question?

If you liked this book, try