MAY 2015 BOOKERS MINUTES & MUSINGS, The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

How is it possible that a small and innocent act can lead to far-reaching consequences?

Thankfully, neither canoes nor umbrellas were necessary when 15 Bookers descended on the home of Beverly Dossett, who not only hosted our final meeting of “our” year, but also provided the overview and discussion of this month’s selection, a female-character driven novel, The Husband’s Secret, by Australian author, Liane Moriarty. FYI, CBS has acquired the film rights and her latest novel, Big, Little Lies, has been optioned by HBO, Reese Witherspoon, and Nicole Kidman.

The Husband’s Secret opens with the reference to Pandora’s Box, which was really a covered jar, but no matter. The analogy set up the story with a reminder of what happened in Greek mythology when you opened something that is to remain sealed…all the ills to plague humanity forevermore will be released, leaving only hope inside the box/jar. The author puts three women in impossible situations, intertwines their lives, and challenges them to find a way to land on their feet. Cecilia Fitzpatrick lives to be perfect – a perfect marriage, three perfect daughters, and a perfectly organized life. Tess O’Leary’s husband and her best friend/cousin/business partner, Felicity, confess they’ve fallen in love. Rachel Crowley, Catholic school secretary, whose daughter was murdered three decades ago, is convinced the school’s P.E. teacher is guilty of taking her life.

The title suggests that only one husband has a secret. As the story digs deeper, we find nothing could be farther from the truth. Moriarty gorges the reader with veiled relationships, guilt, temptations, and human imperfections drawing female characters, coated with a “thin veneer of bitchiness” using inner dialogue to ponder the motivations and psychology behind their actions. The “men of Husbands,” according to one reviewer, (a manly man no doubt) expressed disappointment that his gender is portrayed as either “studs,” “blithering idiots,” or “willful tools of the women in their lives.” Isn’t it interesting that in spite of the men being “ciphers,” the three women in the story all react to the choices made by their men to determine what to do next…Cecilia with the letter, Tess with the love affair, Rachel with her son’s family moving to New York.

Let’s talk. We did. Most read the novel and liked it, although expressed some confusion with all the characters especially in the beginning…too many too soon. We asked…if you’d found the letter would you have opened it…yes, without hesitation. If you found out your spouse/partner had committed a horrible crime, would you turn her/him into the police….well “it depends”…on current circumstances…would a confession to a crime committed in youth serve any purpose decades later? What about the family? But, the victim had one too and they didn’t know why she died. Does one act define you? Do you give up twenty years of being a good husband and father to punish your family by admitting to a tragic, stupid, mistake…Hadn’t he suffered enough guilt throughout the years by making himself a martyr for God’s forgiveness? We had two Bookers who would without doubt turn the “murderer” over to the authorities immediately. We loved Polly, disliked Felicity, and some could identify with Cecilia, Tess, and Esther. We talked about the parents staying together “for the children.” We discussed why Tess didn’t pick up any clues about the “love” brewing between her husband and cousin…Tess never considered her a “threat” because of her weight; Felicity felt she “wasn’t ever thin enough to have a real life.”

We talked about the advantages of writing in third-person past tense – it allows the author to be an “uninvolved” narrator telling a wider story after the action has already happened and the reader knows there’s a future.

On a personal note, my favorite part was when Tess’ Dad sent her the old-fashioned wooded compass to help her find her way when she was feeling lost…love that!

What do the Berlin Wall and Tupperware have in common? In this novel, the author deftly used both metaphorically to enhance the story. A wall is an immovable barrier…it is impenetrable, and isolates those on either side of it, until it falls. Cecilia’s wall – her perfection…Tess, her social anxiety…Rachel, the unsolved mystery of her daughter’s death consumed her every waking minute. Hidden within the wall are the secrets that divide the families, revealed only when the wall is dismantled. Cecilia’s connection to Tupperware wasn’t an accident as nothing organizes your life like bowls that fit together systematically arranging your pantry space in the process. In her case, she finds out that sometimes the lids just don’t fit.

We had some questions concerning the epilogue of the book. Why? The story is over…what more is there to say. One thought, it served as “a beautiful picture of justice” in its purest form…another, the novel began with Pandora’s Box and maybe it was fitting that the epilogue showed us that there indeed was hope left inside.

                                   On the business side:

Thanks Sandy Molander for insisting we choose All the Light We Cannot See. Sandy saw the light before we did on this one – 2016 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. 

Thank you to Gayle Robinson and Dian Jones for sharing so many books for us to read and pass on. Many members took a few to do just that and I still have some here for anyone interested in taking a look at the selection. They all destined for the garage sale, but for now they are available for our reading pleasure.

We will resume Bookers on September 8^th at the home of Joanna Linder. MN and I will take care of the review of our summer read. We’ll discuss our book selections and solicit host homes at that meeting. Please let me know if in your summer reading you come across a good candidate for our 12^th year of Bookers! 

We are in the process of reading and considering several books including Kristin Hannah’s, Nightingale; The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain; Trail of Broken Wings by Sejal Badani

Good summer reads:

The Stranger by Harlan Coben, Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah; and Saving Gracie by Terry Lee. 

                            COLOR CODING SYSTEM

                            WHITE:         LIGHT READ 

                            PINK:             MODERATELY CHALLENGING

                            RED:              CHALLENGING

                                   

Summer Break:           June, July & August

                                    

September 8^th:             Bookers 12^th year

The Boys in the Boat, Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

PINK

Home of Joanna Linder

Reviewers: MN & JoDee

Have a wonderful summer of relaxing, enjoying our full lake, and reading.

JoDee

APRIL 2015 BOOKERS MINUTES & MUSINGS, Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

  “The people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our most ordinary moments.”

19 Bookers met at the home of Kay Robinson to discuss this month’s selection with Jean Alexander narrating the story in the voice of young Niamh Power, the surviving daughter of Irish immigrants living in a “railroad apartment” in Manhattan, which was destroyed by fire. Lost were her mother, father, twin brothers, and sister. As always, Jean gets into character, physically and emotionally, complete with red hair and freckles, asking us to the feel the heartrending journey of a child abandoned. Mission accomplished. Thank you, Jean, for always bringing a unique perspective and visual to your reviews.

The novel opens a few months shy of the Stock Market Crash in 1929 and Niamh becomes the ward of the Children’s Aid Society, her voyage beginning on an orphan train bound for the Midwest, destined for a fresh start, foster families, and new identities. She wore a pewter Claddagh Celtic cross, given by her grandmother, a design of two hands holding a crowned heart symbolizing friendship, love, and loyalty on a chain of interlaced strands representing a “never-ending path leading away from home and circling back – you’ll never be far from the place you started.” The children, stripped of their identities and “sold” into servitude, envisioned a home filled with a caring family, but found they were like merchandise, returnable after a ninety-day trial. Thrown “friendless onto the world” Niamh learned how to survive.

Seventeen-year old Molly Ayer, a descendant of the Penobscot Indians, is also wandering through the maze of obscurity. Her biological father, killed in a car wreck when she was eight, left a grieving and alcoholic mother either incarcerated or institutionalized. Molly too wore a remembrance of a happier time, a present from her father drenched in symbolism – a necklace with three charms. The blue-green cloisonné fish gave her power to resist other’s magic or the greed or insecurity that leads a person to the other side; a pewter raven represented magic to guard against bad spells; and a tiny brown bear signified a fearless spirit and bravery necessary to protect her from others, and her own internal demons. Molly, close to aging out of the foster care system, needs to serve fifty hours of community service or land in “juvie” for stealing a copy of her favorite book, Jane Eyre, from the library. She sees herself in the character of Jane, kind of an “outlaw, passionate, determined, and says exactly what she thinks.”

The story waves back and forth from a young Niamh to ninety-one year old widowed, Vivian Daly, 2011, Spruce Harbor, Maine who “hires” Molly to help her clean out the attic, fulfilling her community service requirement. As each trunk or box is unwrapped, Vivian’s life unfolds and the two improbable characters discover an unbiased connection, as they both understood how it felt to be at the mercy of others. Their personalities, shaped by forced smiles, faked emotion, displays of empathy when none existed, and jaded views of society, directed them to act like everyone else even though they were “broken inside.” They realized that no matter what lands in your path, life goes on – you will grow taller, you will still breathe, and sleep.

The book, written in parallel storylines, kept the similarities between the two main characters dissecting at every interval. Both technically not orphaned, but certainly stood alone against the world, both carried their cultural flags of heritage, the plight of the American Indians much like the Irish under British rule wasn’t a fair fight – their land stolen, their religion forbidden, their people forced to bend to foreign domination. They both wore a necklace of remembrance telling where they started and where they ended up. Neither were unconditionally accepted for what they stood for or how they looked, except by each other, both relying on inner strength and lessons learned to keep standing  in their individual fight to see the light of the next day. The author mixed in some wonderful moments within the dual tragic stories.

The story is wrapped up in a nice package, a truly happily ever after tale for characters deserving of a fairy tale ending. A few thought the ending was rushed; some wanted to know how Molly fared on the portage interview with Vivian; some asking because the ending was the beginning for another generation of Vivian’s family, is there a sequel planned?

Our discussion followed the theme as tales from the Bookers’ train spilled onto the tracks. We’re reminded of our own Vicca, who has since moved, but remains on our email – her story of the “lucky one” raised in an orphanage – we’d love to hear from Vicca on her experience! Many were unaware of the history of the orphan train; a few remembered its mention, others, researched to find out more about it. There are “tenement tours” in New York, author questions and answers segments on YouTube among other articles and information available. We talked of the challenges foster families face, how some are not ideal, but how the good ones make a life-long impact on their kids; how important it is when we offer to purchase items for the CASA kids, to keep in mind the importance of what we buy versus what they ask for. We talked about Vivian giving up her baby, why she made that decision, and how difficult it is to relate to being that “broken” where you can’t face losing one more thing in your life. We spoke of the expectation of perfection and the disappointment when situations are less than that, and how we take for granted some of the basics of livelihood in our Country because we’ve not learned what it takes to be without these essentials. MN recommended Sarah’s Key and Flowers In the Attic by V.C. Andrews for two more excellent books in the same vein as this one. We asked, would Orphan Train fall into your top ten Bookers’ books? Attached is a list of all eleven years of Bookers’ choices. Bring your choice to the May meeting.

                                         On the business side

We spoke some about recommendations of children’s books and after discussing this many members are interested in compiling a list of favorites. Local author, Sharon Ellsberry, has written several books, featured recently in the magazine, Fly Your Flag, and might be available to speak to our group at some time. I’ll gladly keep a list of “Grandchildren Bookers’ books” if you’ll email your suggestions to me.

The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah has received over 3,000 five star reviews and was recommended by Mary Jacobs. Set in France in 1939, it’s the story of two sisters living in a small village who find themselves estranged as they disagree about the imminent danger of occupation. We welcome your feedback.

Beverly Dossett recommends The Martian by Andy Weir, about an astronaut left on Mars – touted as a sci-fi book for all the non-sci-fi-book lovers.

                                       COLOR CODING SYSTEM

                                       WHITE:         LIGHT READ

                                        PINK:             MODERATELY CHALLENGING

                                        RED:              CHALLENGING

May 19^th:                     The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

                                    PINK

                                    Home of Beverly Dossett                                         

                                    Reviewer: Beverly Dossett

Summer Break:           June, July & August

                                    Summer Read

The Boys in the Boat, Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

September 8^th:             Bookers 12^th year

Ask yourself about your own portage – or the moment in your life when you’ve had to take a journey – literally or metaphorically. What did you choose to bring along and what did you choose to leave behind. Personally, I left fear of failure behind and put determination in the canoe.

JoDee

MARCH 2015 BOOKERS MINUTES & MUSINGS, The Pecan Man by Cassie Dandridge Selleck

            

When does a lie become the truth?

17 Bookers met at the home of Joanna Linder to discuss this month’s selection, a simple little story with big powerful messages, chocked full of life lessons set in the year of our Nation’s Bicentennial in the small town of Mayville, Florida. In reverence to the novel, Beverly Dossett and Pat Faherty provided pecan tarts so our palates could experience the true flavor of a southern delicacy – the dessert and the book. All we needed was a front porch, a glass of sweet tea, and a cardboard fan to stifle the heat and humidity of summer and oh yeah the heat and humidity of summer!

In the author’s acknowledgements Ms. Selleck thanks the “wonderful women of the Mayo Woman’s Club” for “your warm friendship, constant support, and occasional kick in the behind…it’s a blessing to have people who believe in me and push me to sit down and write.” Sound like the PWC to me!

There were a few minor formatting issues throughout the book – chapters not beginning on a new page and sentences broken out of a line, an indication of some of the downfalls of self-publishing, but the story and characters stood tall on every page.

Pat Faherty, as always, succinctly let the story tell itself providing her overview of the novel with emphasis on the group discussion. Well done Pat and thank you for never hesitating to take on a project.

As the story begins, we meet the narrator, five foot three, ninety-eight pound Ora Lee Beckworth. She’s fifty-seven years old, a college graduate, a childless recent widow who lives in a two-story house on pecan tree-lined Main Street in small-town U.S.A. Blanche Lowery, in her employ, was as “black as pitch and twice as heavy,” also a widow, but raising five children and two grandchildren. When Blanche entered the world, she was as white as flour prompting her Daddy to say, “No baby of mine could be that pale,” fleeing the scene before her skin began to darken. “Miz” Beckworth took a keen interest in an aged homeless, skinny, toothless black man riding a bike as old as he looked with a sack of pecans tied to the handlebars. She hired the Pee Can man, or Eldred (Eddie) Mims to mow her yard and help with the gardening tossing the neighborhood into panic mode. Ora tried to reassure everyone Eddie was harmless, saying he’d “gum you to death, but he ain’t gonna bite.” Life turned on a dime on September 24^th when Blanche’s youngest child, Grace, was raped by the son of the police chief. Blanche dealt with the situation by telling Grace it was just a bad dream, burying the truth deep within the folds of memory. This horror launched a cascade of events and tragedies soldering “Miz” Beckworth with Blanche Lowery and her family and sealed the fate of the Pee Can man. 

At the conclusion of the one-hundred and fifty-five pages, mysteries are solved, secrets revealed, and “justice” served. We witnessed how ignorance drove fear, and how trust in human nature trumped all. We saw friendship transcending skin color and the ugly face of bigotry. We applauded when charity comes from the heart and not from someone’s expectations…as Ora realized, “It’s easy to feel benevolent when you’re wearing an apron and gloves over a Chanel suit and dishing out turkey and dressing to a long line of the least of these.” We understood the rationalization of paying a debt that you didn’t owe, and we’re reminded how a photograph can reattach long forgotten heartstrings and pondered if lying is ever the right thing to do.

We did miss MN, but our group stepped up to the plate in discussing the nuances of this novel. We spoke of the first chapter and how it grabbed you and held on tightly; how each of the characters were flawed, just like real people (wait a minute…do you mean Ora Lee, Blanche, and Eddie are not real…); how we don’t really know the everyday circumstances of those individuals in our employ, but they do know us; we shared personal insights into segregation and how it differed from one part of the country to the other; how culture dictates action and the importance of being genuine with all people; how disturbing that the black community doesn’t seem to support their own businesses, asking the question, why not;  applause for those individuals that have the courage to step away from their stereotype, to break the mold instead of using an excuse; of being politically correct in our terminology for different races and how the divide is not just between race, but includes religion as well; we wondered if Grace’s downfall was shaped by the rape and the cover-up or was she following the hereditary path of addiction.

Daryl shared a true and a very poignant story of a group of young blacks on a missionary trip to Israel who played the “slave card,” refusing to do some of the work because their ancestors paid their dues so they didn’t have to do that kind of work. And, on a lighter note, Leslie told a story about the difference in pronunciation between Pee Can and Pecan noting their Texas friend identified a Pee Can as something you put on a boat with Pecan being the proper enunciation. Upon returning to New York, she ordered a Pecan pie at a local bakery and they looked at her as though she was speaking a foreign language…until she ordered a Pee Can pie!

On the business side:

Thank you to everyone who supported our donation to the Books in Bloom fundraiser as we’ll be sending a check for $60.00 to benefit the Henderson County Clint W. Murchison Memorial Library in the name of PWC Bookers.

Patty Evans suggested The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, a romantic comedy about a socially inept professor of genetics who decides it’s time to find a wife in an orderly, evidence-based manner. We may find a spot for this on next year’s calendar as it is a very entertaining read. The sequel, The Rosie Effect, is in stores as well.

                        COLOR CODING SYSTEM

WHITE:         LIGHT READ

PINK:             MODERATELY CHALLENGING

RED:              CHALLENGING

April 14^th:                    Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

                                    PINK +

                                    Home of Kay Robinson

                                    Reviewer: Jean Alexander

May 19^th:                     The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

                                    PINK

                                    Home of Beverly Dossett                                         

                                    Reviewer: Beverly Dossett

Summer Break:            June, July & August

                                    Summer Read

The Boys in the Boat, 

Nine Americans and Their

Epic Quest for Gold at the

1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

September 8^th:             Bookers 12^th year

“Southerners are mostly happy to give tit for tat.”

JoDee

FEBRUARY 2015 BOOKERS MINUTES & MUSINGS, ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr

"Here it is, his prose insists, right here on the page: a world made of words, a world we make up in our heads as we read, using all the light we cannot see."

20 Bookers met at the home of Jean Alexander to discuss this graceful masterpiece set in Hitler’s Germany, Paris, and the walled seaside town of Saint-Malo in Brittany during World War II. We meet an orphaned German boy, a visionary blessed with intellectual curiosity, and a blind French girl able to see light only through her imagination. Congratulations to Barbara Creach for guiding us through a decade of story zigzagging back and forth between timelines and settings and offering the author’s voice detailing the underpinning and motivation for writing this historical novel, ten years in the making. 

To honor this novel, the store manager of Books, Inc., the West’s oldest independent bookseller in Alameda, California developed a Sea of Flames cocktail. Mix 1.5 ozs. Hendrick’s Gin; 1 oz.Byrrh (red wine based aperitif born in France prior to WWII); ½ oz. St. Germain; 2 tsps. lemon juice; 2 dashes of Germany’s The Bitter Truth bitters with ice, strain and pour into chilled glasses. The saga of the stone centered on the largest raw diamond ever seen. It was a brilliant blue and at the center a “touch of red like flames inside a drop of water” and came equipped with a curse – the keeper of the stone would live forever, but those he loved would suffer misfortunes. If thrown back into the sea, the curse would be lifted, but the last “keeper” ordered it locked inside a deep vault for two hundred years. Cheers…hopefully the cocktail doesn’t possess anything other than a slight headache.

The author wanted to tell a story in a time in history when hearing the voice of a loved one in your home, in your ear, was a magical thing. The focus landed on the role of the radio “when a war was fought in static waves instead of trenches” waging through the air invisibly and the front lines are anywhere.” Thus, the stories of Marie-Laure LeBlanc in France and Werner Pfennig in Germany paralleled the other until their paths collided in occupied France as they both tried to survive the devastation of World War II. She lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural history, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. At six, she goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. At twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives. They carry with them what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel, The Sea of Flames. Werner lives in a mining town with his sister, his expertise in building and fixing communication instruments landing him a place in a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then on to a special assignment to track the resistance traveling through the heart of the war and reaching Saint-Malo. Through it all, their story, against all odds, shows how people try to be good to one another and how “light and grace inextricably bubble up in the midst of banality, deprivation, imbalance, and even downright evil.”

The majority of our group loved the book and the writing, but acknowledged it was at times difficult to keep up with a timeline. It opens a month after the Allied invasion of Normandy and the two main characters are young adults…then we go back to 1934 when they were children…forward to 1940, forward again to 1944, back to 1941 and ahead to 1944, and so on. The author wrote it in this sequence to gather narrative momentum and suspense trying to “interweave all the pieces the way a puzzle comes together.” We talked about the life lessons throughout the novel and wondered about the symbolism associated with the frog and owl. FYI, some cultures see the frog as a communicator, the voice of the people, a survivor who exists in two worlds, of land and water, while the owl is linked with wisdom and foresight, the ruler of the night, the seer of souls. After all the emotion of the story, the ending seemed rushed and to some unsatisfactory, but the author explained by showing an elder Marie-Laure interacting with her grandson, he hoped to emphasize this war was more than a video game to those who lived it. “The cult of personality built into Germany” at the time could happen again…all “it takes is a very powerful propaganda tool, like the radio, and a populace that’s maybe struggling for lots of different reasons.”

With every physical detail, every word of every sentence, and every metaphor Doerr treated us to an illumination of narrative precisely paced with a language as silken as angora wool. We could see “each needle of a cypress tree, a polygon of light”…could hear a young man talking in “feathery accented French”…could question how the brain “locked in darkness, floating in a clear liquid inside the skull could create a world in the mind full of light”…could hear the sentimentality of ‘Claire de Lune’ “like a lonesome light wandering through the woods…of souls singing in a minor key, of victorious love and the opportune life…they do not seem to believe in their happiness and their song mingles with the moonlight.”             

        On the business side

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton is a historical fiction novel set in 1686 in Amsterdam centering on an eighteen-year old who marries an older wealthy merchant. His wedding gift to her is a cabinet-sized replica of their home. It starts slowly, the Dutch language is difficult to decipher, but about page one hundred, the plot lines twist and turn providing the intrigue. It’s a good book and in my opinion, would be color-coded RED, and included on our recommended reading list.

Donna Walter highly recommended another historical novel, The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin that tells the story of Ann Morrow, Charles Lindberg’s wife. Many top ratings by reviewers.

We voted on Cassie Dandridge Selleck’s The Pecan Man, for our March selection. It’s available on Kindle, audio, and paperback through Amazon and has over 1,000 reviews, 4.5 stars. This short novel is a work of Southern fiction, set in 1976 narrated by a recently widowed, childless woman who hires a homeless, old, black man to mow her lawn. It’s been described as To Kill a Mockingbird meets The Help.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins is climbing the bestseller list. It’s a dark, haunting, depressing, psychological thriller that would appeal to fans of Gone Girl, unreliable narrator and all.

It seems that after fifty-five years, 88 year-old author Harper Lee of To Kill a Mockingbird fame is set to release her second novel, Go Set a Watchman July 2015. The drama continues in the media as to the circumstances surrounding the new discovery, etc…stay tuned. It’s set during the civil rights movement and told through the voice of an adult Scout who returns to her Alabama home from New York.

The third annual Books in Bloom fundraiser benefitting the Henderson County Clint W. Murchison Memorial Library in Athens is slated for April 17^th at the Cain Center. Bookers has supported this event for the past two years and we would like to continue our participation. Tables of 8 are sold at $30.00 per person for the luncheon only or $40.00 per person for the champagne author reception and luncheon. Participants bring their own china plates, water glasses, cloth napkins, silverware, and a small centerpiece for their table. Tablecloths are provided. MN and I will not be able to attend this year but we hope at least eight of will represent the Pinnacle Women’s Club and Bookers. Both Melanie and Patty Evans have expressed an interest in helping with the décor and we just need six more volunteers and someone to coordinate the funds, etc…It’s a cultural event right in our backyard! Please support this if you can.

                           COLOR CODING SYSTEM

                           WHITE:    LIGHT READ

                           PINK:        MODERATELY CHALLENGING

                           RED:         CHALLENGING

March 3^rd :                  Note change of date

                                    The Pecan Man by Cassie Dandridge Selleck

                                    WHITE

                                    Home of Joanna Linder

                                    Reviewer: Pat Faherty

April 14^th:                    Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

                                    PINK +

                                    Home of Kay Robinson

                                    Reviewer: Jean Alexander

May 19^th:                     Note change of date

The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

                                    PINK

                                    Home of Beverly Dossett                                         

                                    Reviewer: Beverly Dossett

Summer Break:           June, July & August

                                    Summer read:

The Boys in the Boat, Nine Americans

and Their Epic Quest for Gold 

at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

September 8^th:             Bookers 12^th year

Let your fears and privation “be rinsed away by wind, and color, and light.”

Happy Reading,

JoDee

JANUARY 2015 BOOKERS MINUTES & MUSINGS, The Headmaster's Wife by Thomas Christopher Green

This month was our first attempt in eleven years with the open discussion format versus a “structured” review/recap/analysis. Our small band of loyals (15 Bookers) rose to the occasion and we were pleased that The Headmaster’s Wife provided bountiful fodder to nibble.

                  “What’s the book about?”

There is no right or wrong answer, but here’s what the group gathered from reading this novel.

Grief was a popular answer. The author began this novel in the neonatal intensive care unit in the summer of 2009. His second daughter born prematurely with lungs incapable of functioning only lived six months, but in that short time, she touched so many lives. What began as a novel of grief evolved into a testimonial to her courage and fearlessness. Narrative dotted throughout the book expanded on this theme, “Grief, it numbs you. Nothing tastes good, nothing smells good, sleep is elusive…it grows like a virus and takes over.” The novel explores the tragedy of the loss of a child, the ties of family and place, and how grief dictates what the mind absorbs and how it processes that sorrow. It asks, “What happens if you don’t hold it together?” What happens if life completely falls apart?” We wondered how grief connects to mental illness and how easily the mind adjusts to the reality you create for yourself. Parent’s grief over the loss of a child is different….often never recovering from the loss. “What is the only thing a parent needs to do? Make sure your children live longer than you do.”

Forgiveness: What goes around comes around. Arthur set up his “enemy” Russell in order to remove him as an obstacle in his pursuit of Betsy. In the end, Russell felt obliged to save Arthur from confinement inside a State mental institution. Why? Maybe selfishly, to insert himself back into Betsy’s life, or because he chose to be a better man, whatever the motive, he forgave Arthur.

It stands “as a moving elegy to the power of love as an antidote to grief:” It’s a mournful poem of marriage beginning with a couple “wanting to climb inside the other person and wear her skin as your own. Only to end with thinking if the person across from you says another word you’ll put a fork in her neck – or somewhere in between.” They grow old together, are broken together, but as long as “they don’t shatter at the same time, they might find a way to pick each other off the ground, but “Time is malleable. Memory fails. Memory changes.” 

Expectations:  When their son Ethan was born, Elizabeth and Arthur had different expectations for the child. She wants to shield him from everything. He’s an average student, nothing exceptional which is OK with her. Arthur wants him to suffer as much as he did under his own father’s expectations, to be the top of the class and excel at sports. Ethan has “high emotional intelligence.” Arthur would prefer “high regular intelligence.”

Entitlement and Peter Pan: All that was required of Arthur to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather was to graduate from college. He didn’t have to excel, just secure the degree and assume the role he was groomed for. When Betsy and Arthur reconnect they both became comfortable “being naked both in the biblical sense and seeing each other’s flaws.” She finds herself back in Lancaster, a faculty wife knowing they most likely won’t live anywhere else. She loved the structure of the school year, not having to worry about cooking, cleaning, paying bills…you can be an adult without any of the responsibility. “I won’t grow up.” She originally thought having a child would change things in her ideal world, but “not doing what you were born to do is like turning your back on the ocean for no other reason than that you dislike beauty.” Nathan’s birth changed her life all right. Selfishness flew out the window and the joys of motherhood took over.

Loose morals set the tone from the beginning: We form an opinion of Arthur Winthrop, fifty-seven years old, and a third-generation headmaster of an elite New England boarding school, and it’s not a pretty picture. He’s obsessed with an eighteen-year old female student, Betsy Pappas, taking advantage of his position, verging on stalker status, to seduce her. He’s a liar, a drunk, a lonely cheating husband, a distraught father failing miserably at handling the loss of his son and incapable of comforting his grieving wife. “I’m a sad needy puppy. I am a boy clinging to his mother’s apron; I am the teenager experiencing the pangs of love for the first time.” Yuk.

The style of writing – creative, unique, but very confusing, a downer: The opening section, entitled Acrimony is Arthur’s first-person narrative. He’s remembering a day twenty years ago with his wife Elizabeth and their five-year old son, Ethan, enjoying a day in Central Park. Then, the scene switches to the police station. Arthur, arrested for wandering around the Park naked, says, “This is how it starts.” His unstable mental health clearly on display throughout the police investigation makes the case that he is an unreliable narrator. This novel is one story told through two points of view.

What is an unreliable narrator? In fiction, it’s generally a protagonist, almost always written in first-person, who in telling the story sounds delusional and untruthful or within the context of his recollection, you suspect he is mentally ill, immature, or he tells you he is. Such as Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, he admits to being “the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life,” add his age and his skewed viewpoint of life and he’s as untrustworthy as they come. Huckleberry Finn and Forrest Gump were also narrators whose perception is immature or limited through their point of views. Gone Girl is another example, but with two unreliable narrators…alternating accounts of Nick Dunne and the diary entries of his wife, asking the reader… Who do you trust?

This novel is a masterpiece of deception as we’re tossed into a distasteful tale of a ‘dirty old man’ in an affair with young lady and about half-way through the book, the OMG moment arrives in the form of an old adversary, turned savior. The next section, Expectations, is the other side of the story, narrated from the third-person perspective of Arthur’s wife – Betsy aka Elizabeth. The final section, After, is the dénouement – the final resolution of the complex sequence of events in the novel where we find Arthur being committed to a mental institution and Russell and Betsy eating sushi in his apartment in New York. Russell asks her why she didn’t succeed in drowning…she says she doesn’t know the reason but after flinging herself into the river, she knew she couldn’t do it….why, maybe she had something to look forward to after all? “The winter sheds its skin every spring.” She shed her skin when she first came to Lancaster, the day she became Betsy, and again when she married, moved into the big white house as the headmaster’s wife, and with the birth of Nathan. A molting might come with a life with Russell…a glimmer of hope for their future…ends the novel.

As always the group shared experiences with forms of dementia and mental illness and being able to tell our own stories is therapeutic for all those dealing with these issues…a commonality of heartache among friends.

MN and I appreciate your contribution to this discussion and thank you for giving this novel a chance to shine by letting us grow as readers.

                                       On the business side:

Please note the March meeting date has changed to March 3^rd instead of the 10^th.  We still do not have a selection for that month and will decide in February.

We are considering The Boys in the Boat, Nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown for our summer read. It’s a non-fiction that reads like a novel. Solid five stars on Amazon and over seven thousand reviews. Set during the Depression in the then small nondescript town of Seattle, it tracks a rowing team’s triumphant march into Hitler’s Olympics.

                              COLOR CODING SYSTEM

                              WHITE:         LIGHT READ

                               PINK:             MODERATELY CHALLENGING

                               RED:              CHALLENGING

February 10^th:              All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

                                    RED

                                    Home of Jean Alexander

                                    Reviewer: Barbara Creach

March 3^rd :                  Note earlier date

                                    No book selected                   

                                    Home of Joanna Linder

April 14^th:                    Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

                                    PINK +

                                    Home of Kay Robinson

                                    Reviewer: Jean Alexander

May 19^th:                     The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

                                    PINK

                                    Home of Beverly Dossett                                         

                                    Reviewer: Beverly Dossett

Summer Break:           June, July & August

September 8^th:             Bookers 12^th year

Happy Reading,

“What do we owe to those we love? What actions are unforgivable?” Food for deep thought.

JoDee

DECEMBER 2014 BOOKERS MINUTES & MUSINGS, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

What holds true in books as in life is you need to “encounter them at precisely the right time.”

On one foggy Texas morn, 21 Bookers converged on the home of Bonnie Magee to extend a very Merry Christmas and toast another joyful year of reading and sharing books. Co-host Rosemary Farmer captured the season and the theme of this month’s novel with a display of books in sections and the Island Books sign. We owe special thanks to Bonnie for once again doing a great job of coordinating our menu and hosting the holiday celebration, to those who volunteered to bring food and spirits, and to our Mimosa elves, Jane and Leslie, for keeping us hydrated and happy.

Melanie Prebis walked us through this “love letter to the world of books” about a thirty-nine year old grieving widow, A.J. Fikry, owner of a small bookstore on a remote island off the coast of New England. It’s a story of overcoming depression and bitterness to give his heart and name to an abandoned child and trusting in a second chance for love. The combination of Maya, the intelligent and precocious two-year old and Amelia, the thirty-one year old single publisher’s sales representative, provide a solid footing for A.J. to transition from a man bent on “drinking himself to death” to the toast of the Island’s book community. We see a boorish A.J. who detests anything from postmortem narrators to children’s books and adding to the flabbergast he thinks writers are “unkempt, narcissistic, silly, and generally unpleasant” in a livelihood surrounded by authored hardcovers and paperbacks. Alongside the ‘new daddy-new love’ story, a cast of minor characters provides entertaining sub-plots, one involving his sister-in-law, the mysterious theft of a treasured possession and the stories tied to it, and her writer husband’s deceitfulness. Another, a police chief expanding his reading horizons, forming a book club for his fellow officers, and finding love and skeletons in the closet co-existing in the same bedroom; a book-signing event featuring a Hemingway-department store Santa faux author reveals another mystery. There’s a heartrending end to a new way of life, the beginning of another, and a dream of the future. Although tragic incidents frame the narrative, the story is uplifting and is chocked full of humorous lines and observations.

The majority read the book, many liked it, but a few thought it was very predictable; a couple would have scripted a happier ending; some applied the common sense approach to A.J.’s drastic personality change and how he was able to adopt Maya citing these incidents unbelievable, including Maya’s intelligence level; to a few it read like a fairy tale; We discussed A.J.’s ethnicity. The author constructed his character as Southeast Asian while in the book he describes himself as part Indian. Several of us were under the impression he was of African American lineage. Melanie asked if anyone knew which C.S. Lewis quote was on the new sales rep’s wrist to no avail. We discussed A.J.’s summaries of his favorite literary short stories/novellas for Maya…they cleverly provide us a character profile of A.J. saying, “Read these and know my heart. We are what we love.” Control flew out the window, when towards the end of the meeting we had a lively discussion on “coupling” on the first date. Details are under lock and key.

Some of our favorite quotes:

A.J. on the Maya: “The baby is a terrorist. She wakes up at insane times – 3:45 in the morning is when her day begins.”

“No one travels without purpose. Those who are lost wish to be lost.” The Late Bloomer

“The day my father shook my hand, I knew I was a writer.” (Maya after the writing competition.)

“We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. My life is in these books. We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.” A.J.F.

This quote from the book reminded Melanie of how she feels about Bookers. “Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A.J. decides because they are. We have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.” Thank you Melanie from all of us for recognizing we each possess a wealth of diversity in our reading lives and in our lives in general! And, on a personal note from MN and me, we appreciate all our “cups of tea” are not poured from the same pot, but our goal is to mix the pekoe with the Egyptian chamomile to find a blend that will minimize the discontents and maximize the enjoyment. In one of my grandmother’s short stories, she writes about ‘the first cup of tea moistens the lips and throat and the fifth lifts one to the realms of the unwinking gods.’ We’re shooting for somewhere in between.

                 COLOR CODING SYSTEM

                 WHITE:         LIGHT READ

                 PINK:             MODERATELY CHALLENGING

                 RED:              CHALLENGING

January 13^th, 2015       The Headmaster’s Wife by Thomas Christopher Greene

                                    RED

                                    Home of Sandy Molander

                                    No formal review – group discussion

February 10^th:              All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

                                    RED

                                    Home of Jean Alexander

                                    Reviewer: Barbara Creach

March 10^th:                  No book selected                   

                                    Home of Joanna Linder

April 14^th:                    Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

                                    PINK +

                                    Home of Kay Robinson

                                    Reviewer: Jean Alexander

May 19^th:                     The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

                                    PINK

                                    Home of Beverly Dossett                                         

                                    Reviewer: Beverly Dossett

Summer Break:           June, July & August

September 8^th:             Bookers 12^th year

“All you need to know about a person is how they answer this question. What is your favorite book?”

JoDee