Reading Guide 1

1. The author writes, "There's a fine line between piety and wack-ass obsession." When does religious observance become religious obsession? What's the difference between clinical scrupulosity and simple devotion? Why is it okay, say, to pre- tear toilet paper for the Sabbath, as Orthodox Jews do, but crazy to cut religious references out of the newspaper?



2. Of all the biblical laws, Jennifer becomes obsessed with some strange ones, like those surrounding agriculture, livestock, and ritual impurity. Why these? If you had OCD, what might you be obsessed with?



3. The author describes OCD triggers: "Cross-culturally and transhistorically, we zero in on the exact same things: details and doorknobs, electrical sockets, light switches, blood, bugs, and germs." What do you think draws obsessive-compulsives to these particular items?



4. Since the 1980s, there's been much progress in understanding OCD as a chemical disorder, but it's still not fully understood. What do you suspect causes it? Is it all nature, or partly nurture?



5. Jennifer's family dealt with her scrupulosity with humor. Do you think that was the right thing to do? How would you have dealt with it?



6. Discuss the ways in which Jennifer's religious issues were compounded by growing up in an interfaith family. And how were they compounded by her growing up in such a small Jewish community?



7. The author writes, "There is a magic in OCD, revolving as it does around lucky numbers, magic words, formulas, and rituals." What is its magic? What's the difference between OCD and superstition?



8. The author offers several anthropological analyses of anorexia: it's an attempt to be perfect, a response to the media, an effort to delay puberty, a guilty response to having too much, a rite of passage among the upper middle class. Do you think any of these explanations is accurate?



9. Jennifer Traig takes a light approach to a serious issue. Do you think it's wrong to make light of mental illness? Discuss the ways in which the author uses humor.
   
   
10. Who was your favorite character in Devil in the Details? With whom did you identify most?



11. As adolescents, Jennifer and her sister have a complicated relationship. Jennifer writes, "It has always seemed strange to me that so few siblings in the Bible get along .... Biblical family reunions require flocks of she-goats and wrestling matches; they end in false accusations and hard truces made over fathers' graves. The best you can hope for is the family diplomacy employed by Abraham and Lot: you go right, and I'll go left." What do you make of this?