“Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.”
Wouldn’t this be a perfect motto to attach to our 100-year-old red bridge!
21 Bookers dashed through the 100% humidity and warm temperatures to the home of Bonnie Magee where Christmas dangled in every room for our annual brunch with bubbly in celebration of our friendships, our love of books, and the holiday season. Many thanks to our hostess and sustenance czar extraordinaire, to everyone who filled the table with yummy food, and to Patsy Dehn who offered a blessing. This month’s book served to be an appropriate choice as “Truluv” rejoices the gifts of time and love combined with a season where everything seems softer and more beautiful and a time where expressing thankfulness for small acts turn friends into family is cherished.
We welcomed Jane Ojeda to her first Bookers’ meeting and also happy to see Kittie Minick, Amy Killian, Virginia Gandy, and Mona Southerland all back for another taste of our special book club and Rokhshie Malone who drove in from Dallas and will try to come whenever possible…once a Booker, always a Booker!
We hope to see long-time member, Barbara Creach, who is recovering from hip replacement surgery soon. She’s “down but not out” and anticipates reemerging in January.
Rebecca Brisendine expertly led us through this little book with its heartwarming sweet sentimental tale of an elderly man, a teenager, and a lonely widow coming into each others lives just at the right moment to find second chances where they least expected them. The epigraph (a short message or quote intended to suggest the theme) in the beginning of the book was from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, “We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth and it ain’t even the stars -everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings.”
I would give the author five-stars for her ability to write compassionately with profound observations of human nature detailed in the characters driving the narrative. They were believable with a warmth toward others despite their own circumstances. It was a very easy read that tugged at your heartstrings, but my first critical thoughts were that the depth of the story line was a little weak and the ending was abrupt, but I didn’t realize this was book one of three, so the story and the characters move forward. It was certainly in the spirit of Christmas and the holiday season as it was sated with empathy, love, light, and hope – all “somethings” that are eternal and has to do with human beings as Mr. Wilder profoundly said.
Our discussion:
This may be a first but all but one person read and finished the book and that person had a couple believable issues with Lucille’s domination of everything when she moved into Arthur’s house. Rebecca stated The Story of Arthur Truluv was her favorite of all time. It was a love story – not a romantic love story, but a love story between neighbors like Bookers and the Pinnacle community. She spoke of the fascination with cemeteries where great stories can be learned from the inscriptions on the headstones. Arthur was comfortable chatting with the other residents when he lunched daily in the company of his deceased wife. We talked about the main characters all lost souls – Arthur, eight-five-year-old widower; eighteen-year-old Maddy; neighbor Lucille; Arthur’s deceased wife, Nola, and of course, Gordon the cat. We all agreed there were several laugh-out-loud scenes like Arthur sitting on Lucille’s porch making casual conversation when he experienced a sudden rumbling with acute pains causing him to rapidly excuse himself bolting home at lightning speed; the language conversation between Arthur and Maddy where she called him Captain Make Sense and her Miss Potty Mouth; After Lucille and her high school sweetheart reunited she invited Arthur to dinner to meet him – but he died and after Lucille cried it out she commented, “Well I made supper, table’s set, let’s eat;” And, you’ll have to ask Rebecca about her “Homer Simpson” burp that rivaled Lucille’s which echoed off the walls.
The novel is full of endearing, sometimes heartbreaking, and sweet moments – all laced with so many poignant truths – Loneliness is a powerful emotion…a coincidence is simply God acting anonymously…it’s remarkable to realize that someone you are living with is alone…love ourselves first like God loves us…Arthur’s definition of marriage – there’s one to tell and the one to be told by…happiness is payment for having endured adversity…Maddy and Arthur are both looking for the kind of love they lost or in her case – the love she never had…Maddy honors a woman she never met – Arthur’s late wife, Nola – by naming her daughter after her…and childless Arthur tells Nola about Maddy and her child and says, “we have a family.”
If you need a little more of Mason Missouri and the cast of characters introduced in book one, check out book two – Night of Miracles and book three – The Confession Club.
This novel came along for us at the right time (also reminiscent to A Man Called Ove) – when the news on television is so depressing and our health and well-being is somewhat fragile. But let’s just “promenade all,” and take a page from Maddy and Arthur’s story and remember we can make life easier for others when we share our own light.
COLOR CODING SYSTEM
WHITE: LIGHT READ
PINK: MODERATELY CHALLENGING
RED: CHALLENGING
January 18, 2022 Note change of date
In Five Years, Rebecca Serle
A striking, powerful, and moving love story following an ambitious lawyer who experiences an astonishing vision that could change her life forever.
PINK
Discussion Leader: TBD
Home of Jean McSpadden
February 8: Dear Edward, Ann Napolitano
What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live? One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes and Edward is the only survivor.
PINK
Discussion Leader: Jean Alexander
Home of Rebecca Brisendine
March 8: The Address, Fiona Davis
When a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand New York apartment house, the Dakota, leads to a job offer for Sara Smythe, her world is suddenly awash in possibility – no mean feat for a servant in 1884.
PINK
Discussion Leader: TBD
Home of Joylene Miller
April 12: Cher Ami & Major Whittlesey, Kathleen Rooney
From the green countryside of England and the gray canyons of Wall Street come two unlikely heroes – one pigeon and the other a soldier. Answering the call to serve in WWI neither the messenger bird nor Charles Whittlesey the army officer can anticipate how their lives will briefly intersect in a chaotic battle in the forests of France.
PINK
Discussion Leader: TBD
Home of Bonnie Magee
May 10: Be Frank With Me, Julia Cleburne Johnson Debut
A reclusive literary legend who wrote a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning novel at nineteen has barely been seen or heard from since though, ironically, she still lives in a glass mansion in Bel Air even after having lost all her money in a Ponzi scheme. She needs to write another novel, so her publisher sends her a highly competent editorial assistant whose job is to be a companion to the author’s nine-year-old son – a boy with the intellect of Albert Einstein and the wardrobe of a 1930s movie star.
PINK
Discussion Leader: TBD
Home of Jean Alexander – Bookers Evening Meeting
Summer Read: The Wives of Henry Oades, Johanna Moran
When Henry Oades accepts an accountancy post in New Zealand, his wife, Margaret, and their children follow him to exotic Wellington. But while Henry is an adventurer, Margaret is not. Their new home is rougher and more rustic than they expected—and a single night of tragedy shatters the family when the native Maori stage an uprising, kidnapping Margaret, and her children. The story is based on a real-life legal case.
PINK
Discussion Leader: Jane Shaw
“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” Hamilton Wright Mabie
Happy Reading and Merry Christmas to all
JoDee
