Bookers on the fly changed homes for our annual evening meeting as Melanie’s son, Greg, was displaying COVID type symptoms, although fully vaccinated, but in an abundance of caution, we felt it best to move locations. Bonnie Magee once again held up the hand that is perpetually in the raised position volunteering to host the group and we all appreciate her willingness to open her home especially on short notice.
So,
14 Bookers armed with our beverage of choice descended on St. Andrews Drive
East to enjoy the goodies provided by our members. Once again, many thanks to
all who participated, and Bonnie did another excellent job with her book review
– code word for being our food czar.
We welcomed Judy Short to the evening sadly filled with our farewell to our own Beverly Dossett, her passing leaving a void in our hearts, but she would want us to continue to love our book club as she so passionately did. In her honor we gathered in a circle each saying one word that described our friend and passing a ball of twine between each comment resulting in a crisscrossed web showing how we all are intertwined. Judy was gracious enough to be our photographer and commented on our heartfelt tribute to Bev. Many kudos to MN Stanky for sharing this idea with us! (By the way for those of you who know MN she’s having hip replacement surgery, June 16th and I’m sure she’d love to hear from you…Post Office Box 106, Dauphin Island, Alabama 36528)
As of May 25th, Daryl Daniels reports they will be staying in Houston another six weeks as she started another new treatment using UV light to hopefully take care of the graft versus host rash that has been plaguing her for quite a while. However, the June 11th report from Barry paints a heartbreaking scenario. “We still don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel…very weak, fatigued, experiencing level 8 pain some days….” After being an outpatient for five weeks, “she’s back in the hospital with a bacterial infection…the acute graft versus host disease (started in March) never goes away but may be controlled in 3-12 months…no idea when we’ll be back home…day by day.” Healing prayers welcome.
The Second Mother resonated in many ways with our reviewer, Jane Shaw, who loved the book, and was impressed with the skill the author presented in the descriptions of scenery and setting… “you could feel the texture of the sand on your feet walking with protagonist Julie as she navigated her way around Mercy Island.” Jane, growing up in Northern California, attended a one-room schoolhouse for grades 1-8 – her father the first to attend and Jane the last one. As in this novel, her teacher wore many hats, was creative with her lesson plans, conducting hands-on science classes with nature at her beck-and-call.
Jane with piercing insight and depth walked us through this story of grief and healing tracing Julie Weathers Mason’s journey from a guilt-filled bottomless pit tied to the death of her infant daughter to a place of growth where she found the only way to cope was to somehow find her own ladder out of the darkness. After taking this leap of faith, Julie found her salvation, not in a bottle of scotch, but in children – the ones she taught in her one-room schoolhouse on a remote island off the coast of Maine cut off from the mainland by a choppy unforgiving sea – much like the residents of Julie’s new home.
The novel for me was certainly a page turner, giving me a few anxious moments, a nightmare or two, the necessity to make sure nothing lurked behind a closed door, and the need to twice take a Dramamine, a nod to the author’s storytelling and vivid descriptions of riding the wave trains from the crests to dropping to the bottom of the troughs. The Second Mother proceeds like a deadly spider web of corruption, control, and classism pitting “old money” against the “newbie” who threatens to upset the apple cart. Resilience and determination to right all wrongs run from page one to the end as Julie risks her own life to save a child – at least with this one she won the battle.
Although most of the storylines were tied up in a neat package at the end, a few loose ones begged the question about a sequel to which Ms. Milchman responded, no. Her five books are all standalone novels although there is a common thread running through all of them – where they are set, and her characters are all outsiders trying to fit into small communities. She hopes to someday get back to Mercy Island and see how Julie and her rescue dog are doing, but not in the next book.
If there is such a thing as being born to write, Jenny Milchman would fit the bill dictating bedtime stories to her mom at the age of two. She pursued writing steadily hoping her creative writing ability would classify as a special talent making up for her woeful grades and SAT scores when applying to schools – it didn’t. After her parents asked how she was going to make a living writing and not buying into her vision of writing poetry in a secluded cabin, she decided to pursue a double major in psychology. While a psychotherapist in a rural outpatient clinic, she wrote her first suspense novel, 180,000 words of unpublishable content, resulting in an eleven-year drought before selling one word, and the rest is history with the publication of her fifth – our June Bookers’ Book furnished by BookTrib!
Our discussion:
Our group offered mixed opinions of the novel – some citing it was too long with too many references to walking along paths and feeding the dog while others loved the detail of setting and scene leaving little to the imagination. The genre, psychological thriller, explores the minds and motives of a cast of unstable characters prompting the reader to ask, could this happen to me and who do you trust as opposed to Stephen King’s psychological horror novel in The Shining…which scares the bejesus out of you…one I’ve unsuccessfully tried to finish seven times.
We discussed some of the characters – Callum McCarthy, the island’s sole bachelor, square-jawed handsome lobsterman who evolved into Julie’s love interest. Ellie, the faux-friend, fellow boozer who basically turned out to be another pawn in the Hempstead family chess game, the matriarch more like Cruella De Vil of 101 Dalmatians fame – narcissistic and a slightly insane old bat. Her husband, the wacky Captain, had a soft side which surfaced in the end by standing up to his wife – his last act of kindness before he died. Of course, all dog lovers bonded with Depot rooting loudly when he faced danger. Julie’s ex-husband, David, who later we find out was drowning in his own guilt making him less than likeable in the beginning…but I liked him less at the end because he let his wife wallow in pain and scotch before confessing his perceived role in their daughter’s death. Her growth displayed when she forgave him and by doing so, forgave herself. And, Peter, one screwed up young man – there was a good heart buried deep, but his sadistic side gathered more attention – most poignant when he left Depot on the beach with no way to escape…if he really wasn’t evil then how did this make sense? Was he the island sociopath or a sweet sensitive (misunderstood) boy suffering unspeakable torment? Some of the logistics in scenes like the real difficulty of tying up a dinghy were “underplayed,” and the drama of Julie steering the lobster boat a little over the top…to mention a few.
One critical review pointed to the tone of the author’s writing reading like a Wikipedia page someone would use for a book report. An Amazon five-star review succinctly said, “Take a drunk, maybe a couple of them, a big dog, a rich narcissist, an island full of terrified pawns and a classroom full of kids of all ages, mix together in the rolling ocean and you have a perfectly prepared thriller.”
Per request, I’ve attached a list of books our selection committee has chosen taking us to May 2022. Please keep in mind, these are subject to change if we come across one of those “unputdownable” books we’ve yet to discover.
On the business side:
COLOR CODING SYSTEM
WHITE: LIGHT READ
PINK: MODERATELY CHALLENGING
RED: CHALLENGING
Summer Read: Clementine, The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill, Sonia Purnell
PINK
A long overdue tribute to the extraordinary woman who was Winston Churchill’s closest confidante, fiercest critic, and shrewdest advisor. Later in life he claimed that victory in World War II would have been impossible without the woman who stood by his side for fifty-seven turbulent years.
September 14: Welcome to Bookers 18th year!
Clementine, The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill, Sonia Purnell
Discussion Leader: Patty Evans
Home TBD
JoDee
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