An Abundance of Katherines Study Guide

John Green was born in Indianapolis but spent most of his childhood in Orlando, Florida. His time at a boarding school outside Birmingham, Alabama, has informed some of his fiction, which he has largely written for a young adult audience. Green attended Kenyon College in Ohio, which is known for its robust creative writing program. After graduating in 2000, he briefly enrolled in the University of Chicago’s Divinity School and intended to become a chaplain; he never actually attended classes because he decided over the course of his time working with child hospital patients that he wanted instead to be a novelist. Later, his brief student chaplaincy became the basis for The Fault in Our Stars, his sixth novel, which he published in 2012. The novel received wide acclaim and was adapted into a film in 2014. Green had a cameo in the film and was recognizable to fans because of his internet presence in several YouTube series. These include Crash Course, which features educational videos hosted by Green, and Vlogbrothers, in which he and his brother, Hank Green, explain and discuss subjects ranging from pop culture to politics. Green has also complemented his novels by writing book reviews for The New York Times and radio essays for NPR and WBEZ, Chicago’s public radio station. Green, who has identified himself as a feminist, has been criticized for representing teenage girls and people of color without the same nuance he gives to the white teen boys in his novels. Still, he is often cited as a positive influence on teenagers and has received mostly positive reviews for his internet and radio outreach as well as his novels, which also include Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, and Turtles All the Way Down.

Green published this book in 2006, about five years after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. In the wake of these attacks, the United States saw an uptick in Islamophobia, or irrational fear or hatred of Muslim people and culture, because the attacks were carried out by a radical Islamic terrorist group. Green, who learned a bit about Islam during college and as a student chaplain briefly after college, has stated that he wanted to write Hassan as a Muslim character who was not fully defined by his religion but rather displayed the traits of a well-rounded character who also happened to be Muslim. It is also important to note that the early 2000s, when Green wrote An Abundance of Katherines, saw increasing internationalization and corporatization of businesses, especially with the rise in internet shopping. This shift made it more difficult for local businesses to thrive, which is why the textile factory in Gutshot, Tennessee, runs into financial problems. The novel explores some of the real-world ramifications for people in rural communities whose economies rely on the market for the goods they produce. The novel was published in 2006, but its semi-political treatment of the conflict between big business and the average citizen anticipates the United States Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 ruling known as “Citizens United,” which expanded the rights of corporations and stated that massive corporations are allowed to fund election campaigns with donations that private citizens cannot hope to equal.

On his author website, Green cites David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest as one of his inspirations for his writing style in An Abundance of Katherines, which involves a great deal of footnotes. He says that footnotes are where an author’s voice shines through, and notes that in Infinite Jest, Wallace’s voice is so present that the narrative is sometimes muddied in a way that reflects Colin’s inability to tell a clear, concise story. The coming-of-age rebellion at the heart of An Abundance of Katherines also echoes J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, although Green is conscious of the way in which Colin, as an incredibly smart teenager, also recalls the children in another J.D. Salinger work, the Glass family series. This series deals with a family of seven child prodigies.