In Linden Hills, Naylor bases Willie and Lester’s journey on Dante and Virgil’s journey through the nine concentric rings of hell in the Inferno. Why does Naylor use the Inferno as a reference point for her text, and what do we learn about Linden Hills and its inhabitants from this comparison?

Why is it important that both Willie and Lester are aspiring poets? What role does poetry—and literature—play in the text, and how does it correspond to Naylor’s wider thematic concerns?

In Chapter 2, Lester says that “they’ve all lost touch with what it is to be them” (59). What do you think he means by the phrase “what it is to be them”? Which “they” is he referring to here? What role do the ideas of selfhood and identity play in the text as a whole?