Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

At the beginning of Little Fires Everywhere, the Richardson family watches as their house burns, everyone assuming the younger daughter, Izzy, is responsible. Then the author takes the story back in time to the arrival of Mia Warren, a photographer/artist who has lived a bit of a vagabond life with her daughter, seldom settling anywhere for longer than a matter of months. Mia has promised her daughter Pearl that they're finally going to stay in one place and they've moved into the Richardsons' rental. Is Mia running from something or is she simply moving for the sake of her art? What led Mia and Pearl to slide their key into the Richardsons' mailbox and head out of town just before the fire broke out?

I read Little Fires Everywhere for group discussion and I pretty much loved everything about it. It's one of those books in which the characters are so vividly described that you feel like they could step right out of the pages. And, while I have forgotten what I may have thought the theme to be, at the time I finished I felt like I had an understanding of what the author was trying to say when I closed the book.

Other than that, I had little to say about the book and was mostly silent during my book club's meeting. In fact, I was asked why I was so quiet, for once, and I said I liked the book a lot but I just didn't feel like I had anything to say about it -- other than the fact that I particularly loved reading about Mia's photography. One of our members noted that Little Fires Everwhere is mostly about the women: Mia, Mrs. Richardson, Pearl, and the two Richardson girls are the characters you follow most closely. There's a lot of food for thought.

Maybe I was just having an off night because I recall the dilemma about who should end up with a child, the adopted mother or the biological mother who gave her up during a time of stress, as the most interesting thing about the book. I felt torn because I could see both sides of the legal argument and how each of the mothers might feel. But, we didn't really talk about that for long, other than to acknowledge that the book seemed to be a story of motherhood in which the author described a number of different mothers, their desire to have a child, how they reacted when they became pregnant or didn't, what it's like to be a person who gives up a child or who chooses to abort one. Little Fires Everywhere definitely offers a number of perspectives on motherhood.

Highly recommended - When I finished the book, I looked up reviews by friends at Goodreads and found that at least one of my friends felt the opposite to how I felt -- she hated the photography details and didn't find the characterization went deep enough. Huh. I really thought the characterization was amazing, myself. At any rate, Little Fires Everywhere was a 5-star read for me and I haven't read Celest Ng's first book, so I'm looking forward to eventually reading it.

Note on the cover: I've posted the cover of the book I purchased, which was bought from Book Depository and is similar to American paperback covers.

©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Mini Review and F2F Report: Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

I'm going to keep the description fairly brief and dive right into talking about my book group's discussion of Brooklyn because it was a surprising discussion.

Brooklyn tells the story of Eilis, a young Irish woman with a talent for numbers. Eilis is skilled at bookkeeping and is offered a job in a small shop as a clerk. Her boss, Miss Kelly, has a system by which she keeps the best customers happy. She's strict and not a particularly nice person, but Eilis is happy to be employed. Then, a priest returns to her small village from America for a visit. He knows someone who could give Eilis a much better job with the opportunity for growth and offers to help her move to New York City. Eilis's brothers live in Liverpool and by encouraging Eilis to move to the U.S., her big sister Rose is basically sacrificing any chance she might have to marry and move away, herself. Eilis takes the opportunity to leave and gradually finds her way in life and love as a new American. But, will she be happy if she marries? And, when tragedy strikes, forcing Eilis to go home, will she ever return?

I made the mistake of assuming there wouldn't be much to talk about in F2F group because Brooklyn is such a quiet, understated book that focuses on interpersonal relationships and the everyday events through which Eilis transitions from Irish woman to immigrant worker and then becomes, without even realizing it, an American. Those small changes, though, turned out to be eminently worthy of discussion.

Among other things, we discussed:

• How well the author, a male, got into the head of his female main character.
• Whether or not Rose was "sacrificing herself" by staying behind to live with and care for their mother while Eilis moved to America.
• Comparison of the jobs Eilis held in Ireland and the U.S. and how culture impacted the way the employees interacted with customers.
• Whether or not Eilis, her mother, and her brothers were culturally conditioned to say little in their letters to each other.
• The relationship between Eilis and Rose.
• The relationship between Eilis and her mother.
• Why men left Ireland to get work in England.
• How to pronounce those tricky Irish names (there were at least 4 or 5 different ways people thought Eilis might be pronounced). 
• Eilis's immaturity and whether or not she matured throughout the book.
• Eilis's passivity and whether she would have gone to America at all if she hadn't been encouraged by others.

This one's a potential spoiler, so I'll turn it white and you can highlight it if you're not worried about spoilers:

• Why Eilis went back to America, in the end, and whether or not she would have gone if there hadn't been a connection between someone in Ireland and Eilis's landlord in New York.
• What exactly was going on between Eilis and that fellow in Ireland.
• The cultural differences between Irish and Italian families. 
• The cover of the book shown above - whether or not it reminded anyone of what shops used to look like in small-town America (it did; I didn't mention my hometown but there were small stores that looked very much like the cover photo when I was young and those who grew up in Vicksburg said they remembered shops that appeared similar).

Wow, look at all that! There was so much to talk about. There was also a death that we discussed but I'm trying to avoid spoilers.

Some of us were aware that a movie version of Brooklyn has been made but none of us had viewed it, so there was no basis for comparison. We all did agree that we liked the book, though, and several people said they were going to look up the movie.

Recommended - I enjoyed the book, low-key as it was, and definitely recommend it. We didn't have a show of hands but there were really no negatives brought up so I think I can safely say everyone in my book group enjoyed Brooklyn and the discussion was a lively one. While I do recommend it for book group discussion, I'd advise printing out some topics to discuss. We were fine once we got going but there was a bit of twitchy shuffling before someone spoke up and got the conversation started.


©2016 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans - F2F Report

I read Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans as an ARC, last year, and was so enthusiastic about it (it's in my top 5 from the last 5-10 years) that I took it with me to my book group the month I read it. I knew they would not read and discuss it right away because we only select books available in paperback -- and preferably obtainable from the library -- but when it eventually became available, our group leader added it to the calendar and we discussed it last week.

The author and I are Twitter friends, so I asked her if she had any insight to offer and she kindly sent me the material that's included in the American paperback copy along with a Q/A, both of which were very insightful. I particularly wanted to know if there was anything she wanted to point out about the book and I'll get to that in a second.

Crooked Heart tells the story of a young evacuee from London during the Blitz, Noel, and the woman who takes him in. Here's a link to my review:

Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans 

I read the Q/A aloud because we all had those blank looks you sometimes get when there aren't any prepared discussion questions and nobody's exactly sure where to begin. I occasionally stopped to say something or ask opinions about one of her answers and by the time I reached the end of the Q/A, discussion had been nicely stirred up.

In both of the documents, the author mentions wanting to write about the "underside" of the Blitz and this is what she mentioned to me when I asked if there was anything in particular that she wanted to note. The underside she's referring to are the people who cheated or stole during the Blitz, just as they normally would - and how she researched a sector of society often overlooked because they weren't the type to either be interviewed about how they lived or to write memoirs. This was done via local newspapers of the time, with particular focus on the Herts Advertiser and St. Albans Times, a now-defunct paper that contained "a patchwork of stories that reflected all aspects of wartime provincial life, where bomb news and black-out advice nudged shoulders with accounts of Masonic Social Nights and lists of people being prosecuted for defaulting on the rates".

We talked about hometown newspapers that contained similar snippets. Most everyone knew of a paper that had done the same. My hometown called its one-paragraph reports the "City Briefs" and they were immensely entertaining, from birth announcements to petty crimes, accidents, reports of loose animals and strange happenings around town, etc.

The author spoke about whether or not her characters were "morally shaky" and how one person labeled Crooked Heart a "children's book" because one of the characters was 10 (and then 11) years old. We talked about the morality of the characters but I neglected to mention something that really jumped out at me on the second reading. The first time, I thought of Vee -- who goes door-to-door asking for donations to various organizations, such as support for widows and orphans of pilots killed in the war -- as a horrid person who eventually softens. But, the second time I read the book I realized that Vee was just doing what she knew how to do to help her family survive; she worked incredibly hard to keep everyone fed and satisfied, in spite of the fact that nobody ever expressed gratitude. The fact that I paid attention to Vee's efforts, the second time through, made the book even more appealing -- and it was already a 5-star book.

One of our members mentioned that she found her way into reading adult books, during a time that YA did not exist, by reading any novel that contained a child. The author herself said she didn't mind if it was accepted as a read for children, as well, although that was not her intent. I don't recall what we said about that but I should mention that the book is free of anything that one might consider too offensive for children and it's certainly a book that I would have loved as a child, since my interest in WWII began around the age of 9 or 10.

We talked about the complexity of the book, the cleverness of Evans' plotting, and the vividness of the scenes. Everyone was particularly impressed with the scene in which Vee is hunting for a missing Noel and they're caught in a bombing raid, how the bombs grew closer and closer and the horror of knowing that they were in the path of those bombs was so visceral. It was very much a "you were there" type of scene and I think we were in agreement that it will stick in our minds for quite some time.

Mattie, Noel's godmother, who appears in the prologue and whose impact on Noel continues throughout the story, also was mentioned both because she was such a wonderful character and we were all happy to hear that the author is going backwards in time to tell Mattie's story in her next novel. Everyone loved Mattie.

Finally, one of our members asked for a summing up of everyone's opinion: thumbs up or down? It was unanimous: everyone gave it a thumbs up. Generally speaking, a book that everyone agrees on is one that doesn't generate the best discussion and there were times we lost the thread, but never for long. Crooked Heart contains such fascinating characters and scenes that there was plenty to discuss. I was relieved that everyone enjoyed the book, since I recommended it. It's always a great feeling when the majority (in this case, all) love a book you recommend and rather a horror when a title falls flat and/or is one that nobody really wants to talk about, so I went home happy.

Bottom line: Crooked Heart is a solid discussion book that everyone in my group loved. And, it's still one of my favorites. There's much to be enjoyed on a second reading and I imagine I'll reread it many times, in the future.

©2016 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Catch-up #3: Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming, The Giver (review and F2F report) by Lois Lowry

I am seriously going to have to start jumping on the reviews the moment I finish a book. Not My Father's Son is excellent, really one of the best memoirs I've read in the last few years -- and I love memoirs. But, I waited too long and I'm feeling like I can't do it justice. I'll do my best, though.

Not My Father's Son tells the unfolding story of events that took place a few years ago when Alan Cumming agreed to have his family history revealed in a reality show, the UK's "Who Do You Think You Are?"

The story pivots between "Then" and "Now", sometimes with specific dates added. The past that he refers to as "Then" describes childhood abuse at the hands of his father. "Now" refers to a time when he was preparing to appear on "Who Do You Think You Are?", a show in which a famous personality's family history is revealed. Cumming describes how he dealt with what he discovered about his immediate family and his family's history. The genealogical preference for investigation was his. What did Cumming want to know about his family? He chose his maternal grandfather's last years. Why did his mother's dad leave the family for Malaya? How did his early death occur? Did he commit suicide, die accidentally, or was he murdered?

Trigger warning: If you have difficulty reading about childhood abuse, you might want to skip this one.

Cumming's story is an extremely emotional journey. The reality show triggered memories that he, his brother and his mother had suppressed. As a child, his father abused them all. He had a ready excuse: Alan was not his son. But, if that was the case, why did he also terrorize his biological child, in addition to the wife he thought faithless and the son he refused to think of as his own?

As Cummings sought to both reveal the truth about his parentage and keep his own unknown story from being publicly revealed before he had firm answers, he was also gradually learning about his grandfather's death. Both a story of family events and how mental health has been treated, past and present, Alan Cummings' memoir reveals a man of surprising strength, joy, and love, especially given his painful childhood. You can't help but emerge from the book admiring its author, his mother, and his brother. They may have been treated badly but their unbending love for each other and Cumming's mother's amazing support throughout their ordeal is a wonder.

Highly recommended - Very skillfully crafted and moving.

I received a copy of Not My Father's Son from Dey Street Books (an imprint of HarperCollins) in return for an impartial review. It was released last week. Choosing a maximum of 2 or 3 books a month is going well, so far. I'm definitely glad I requested Not My Father's Son.


********SPOILER WARNING********

I've already read The Giver before and this time I want to talk about the ending. So skip my review if you don't want to know what happens.

The Giver by Lois Lowry was a book I reread for book group discussion; the meeting was held last night. 

The Giver is the story of Jonas, a boy chosen by the elders in his utopian, literally black-and-white world to hold the memories of the past for the people of his village. The old Giver is exhausted from holding the memories and the physical and mental pain that accompanies them. But, he's erred in the way he attempted to pass on the memories to a new Giver, in the past. So, he tries to be gentle when passing on memories of life and death, color and temperature, war and love -- all the things that have been eliminated in a structured, precise world where marital partners, children and careers are chosen based on personal attributes but deviation from societally-imposed strictures is deadly. In spite of gentle adjustment to the memories, Jonas still thinks things need to change and a baby whose imminent "release" (a euphemism for death) shocks Jonas will be the catalyst for change.

The Giver has what some people read as an open ending. Did Jonas really escape with baby Gabriel and find a place where Christmas is celebrated with color and cheer or did he fall into unconsciousness and dream of a place he wished to find? Apparently, the question of what really happened is answered in a sequel; there are 3 companion novels and I can't recall which one answers the question. I couldn't find our old copy of The Giver, so I bought the "quartet". I'll get to the other books, eventually. I had my own opinion of what happened.

The good and the bad:

I think everyone in my F2F group felt the same about the science fiction aspect of The Giver. There's no explanation as to how and why memories are held by a single person, how the people are restricted from seeing color, how their world is climate-controlled. So, I think everyone felt like there were aspects of the book that were difficult to buy into. What we loved about The Giver was the fact that it opens up so many different avenues for discussion. Jonas's father is a "carer" who works with children because he's a natural nurturer but his mother is a judge, for example, which brings up the issue of how gender plays into our expectations of character and career aspirations. The fact that nobody can see color led us to discussion about how color blindness allows for racial equality. The lack of pain leads to questions about whether or not pain is essential to growth. We also talked about how rigid structure didn't allow for creativity or individuality.

Highly recommended - No wonder they teach this book in schools.  At any rate, not everyone loved the story (I loved it every bit as much as I did the first time) but the conversation was lively and fresh. I haven't made it to very many meetings, this year, but our discussion of The Giver was one of the best I've experienced in recent memory so I definitely recommend it for group discussion.

Some of our group members have seen the recent movie release of The Giver, so we also discussed the differences a bit. I have not, but hope to view it in the future.

I call Jonas's world "utopian" early in this review but that's a question I neglected to ask group members. Is the story really utopian if people are being put to death for minor aberrations from the norm or is the village a dystopian world because many are unaware of its realities? Thoughts are welcome.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard - The F2F Report

I've already reviewed Labor Day by Joyce Maynard (my review, here) so this post is a report on my book group's discussion. We were provided 10 copies of Labor Day by HarperCollins and I didn't receive them (thanks to the first box going astray) till last Thursday.  Fortunately, it's a quick read so most of the 16 people (3 male, the rest female) who showed up for our meeting had managed to read it.  

The consensus was overwhelmingly positive. Labor Day is very different from our typical fare - a quick read, neither challenging nor brilliantly written but, we all agreed, great storytelling. Before I had even arrived (I was a tiny bit late to arrive in Vicksburg), everyone had apparently already taken a vote and given Labor Day an overwhelming thumbs-up.  

Quick synopsis - Convict Frank escapes from a hospital after an appendectomy and spends a long holiday weekend being sheltered by Adele and Henry, leaving a lasting imprint on their lives.

WARNING: Portions of this post may contain spoilers. Please skip this post if you haven't read the book and/or are concerned that spoilers may ruin the reading for you.

We used the Reading Group Guide in our books as a starting point, although the discussion was such an enthusiastic one that we didn't just stick to the questions in the guide. We discussed whether Adele was mentally ill or just needed to pull her boots up and get on with life, whether she was a good or bad mother and how her inability to function due to agoraphobia, grief and severe depression (my wording -- I think she was in serious need of treatment for mental illness) had a negative impact on Henry.

We talked about Frank, the escaped convict -- his innocence or guilt, why he would bother escaping if he was not guilty, whether he was a decent man who was the victim of terrible circumstances or really just a very good con man. We discussed the changes in how we felt about him as the book progressed and which scenes showed his innate kindness.

Lust versus love came up, although nobody mentioned that Adele may have been more vulnerable to Frank's attention because of her loneliness and depression. We did, however, talk about the fact that we were not surprised that she took Frank home because it was clear that she wasn't stable and therefore was not able to make logical decisions.

The group discussed normality: how a "normal" family life can be defined (with mention of a particular scene witnessed by Henry through a window) and why Henry was protective of his mother. We talked about why he wasn't really thrilled about the idea of living with his father, stepmother and their children, what happened after Frank left and Henry had to go live with his father, and the long-term impact of Frank's stay on Adele and Henry.

We talked about Eleanor and I couldn't remember Eleanor so I've just flipped through the book to remind myself who she is.  Oh, yeah.  Now I remember.  Funny that she's so important -- really, the catalyst to the Labor Day weekend's ending -- and yet I'd completely forgotten about her.

We're going to set up a time to go to the movie together, when it's released, and we talked about our expectations for the movie.  I didn't watch the Golden Globe Awards but someone mentioned the fact that Kate Winslet won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Adele, which obviously bodes well, and another member mentioned seeing an interview with Kate Winslet in which she talked about having to lose weight for the role and her difficulty with weight, in general.

Various expectations of the Labor Day movie:

• Since the book is a coming-of-age novel narrated by an older Henry reflecting back on a pivotal turning point in his life, one of our members brought up the fact that it should be narrated by Henry. Some agreed, some didn't, but I think everyone pretty much was in consensus that with or without Henry narrating as a man reflecting on his youth (which one member thought would be awful because narration can easily be overdone), it still should be a movie shown from Henry's viewpoint.  
• We're all curious how the book will be translated to the screen -- which scenes will be removed, what may be added. My F2F group is a widely varied bunch but we love comparing books to movies.  
• We are all hoping it won't be too graphic.  Some mentioned that because Labor Day told from the perspective of a 13-year-old boy, it's only natural that there's a great deal of focus on sex.  But, said one member, it's not provocative; it's sexy.  Nods all around and mention of hopes that the sex scenes will mostly involve a bit of knocking on the wall without actually showing Adele and Frank together. 
• I mentioned that I'm most looking forward to the peach pie scene from the book and that comment got an enthusiastic response.  The peach pie scene was, to many of us, one of the most meaningful scenes because it had so much impact on Henry.  It could easily become a scene that is not just touching because it shows Henry's kindness and how teaching Adele and Henry something important to him bonds Frank to both of them but also one that helps portray the developing crush between Adele and Frank with a few meaningful looks. 
• I'm also hoping that a few brief scenes in which Frank works with Henry on improving his baseball skills will be done well.  I visualize only a little talking and some images of the two of them continuing to work together without dialogue - just a musical interlude to show how Frank patiently works through Henry's frustrations to help him improve.

A few final words:

I definitely recommend Labor Day as a book club read.  I was pleasantly surprised at how many different aspects of the characterization, story, plot, etc. we found to talk about. We've read some beautifully written but intense books, this year, and the entire group enjoyed reading a book that was interesting and discussion-worthy without being either time-consuming or overwhelming. One member said she was glad not to have to look up any words in the dictionary, which made me laugh.  I like learning new words but I agree, sometimes it's nice to just read something that's easy on the brain. Another member said she was happy to be able to skim the sex scenes without feeling like she was missing anything (unlike, several mentioned, The Goldfinch, which is terribly long but still felt like a book that required that one read every single word).

Labor Day is scheduled for release on January 31.  Do you like comparing a movie to the book it's based upon?

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - Review and F2F Report

This will be my first review since I returned to the blog, so I'll just tell you a few things I plan to change to my reviewing format, up front.  Things are going to be more casual.  I'm all about the time crunch, at the moment, so if my copy of a review book isn't handy I'm not going to bother running to fetch it to prop it up for details.  If it was received from a publisher, "ARC" will appear in the labels (even if it's a finished copy) to distinguish it from books in my personal library or public library books.  I do think it's important to mention that my Face to Face (F2F) book group received copies of The Goldfinch from Little, Brown and Co., which was much appreciated.  We had a lively discussion.  This review/F2F report is a bit longer than you should probably expect in the future because the cats woke me up at 4:30 AM.  

Onward.  An excerpt:

We looked at each other and just laughed; everything was hysterically funny, even the playground slide was smiling at us, and at some point, deep in the night, when we were swinging on the jungle gym and showers of sparks were flying out of our mouths, I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.  For hours, we watched the clouds rearranging themselves into intelligent patterns; rolled in the dirt, believing it was seaweed (!); lay on our backs and sang 'Dear Prudence' to the welcoming and appreciative stars.  It was a fantastic night--one of the great nights of my life, actually, despite what happened later. 

~p. 333 of Advanced Reader Copy (some changes may have been made to the finished print version)

The Goldfinch is Donna Tartt's third book and the first that I've managed to read (also true of the members of my F2F group, who agree they would like to read more by Tartt), although I do have a copy of her first book, The Secret History, and I knew she was from Mississippi.  At close to 800 pages (densely packed, at that), The Goldfinch is a book rich with detail.  Is that a good thing?  Well, let's see what my F2F group had to say.  We'll just go with the interview method. I will be interviewed by the bird on the cover.  

Goldfinch:  Tweet.

Bookfool:  Hello.

GF:  Tell us about the story, please.

BF:  The Goldfinch is the story of Theodore Decker.  When Theo is young (about age 12, as I recall), he and his mother are victims of a (fictional) explosion in New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  After he regains consciousness, Theo finds The Goldfinch lying nearby and sits with a dying man. Then, he takes the painting with him and keeps it for many years, considering himself its caretaker while realizing he should return the painting.  As Theo grows, he becomes friends with the business partner of the man whose death he attended and moves from place to place.  He keeps the painting, knowing it's considered stolen. What will become of Theo, who suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress, and the priceless painting?

GF:  Did you and your group members know I am a real painting, going into the reading of this book?

BF:  Most of us did.  For those of you who are unaware, The Goldfinch was painted by Carel Fabritius in 1654.  Fabritius himself was the victim of an explosion but the painting has never been stolen.  Although our Dutch F2F member (who is moving away, gosh darn it) has seen some of his paintings, I'm pretty sure she said she had not seen The Goldfinch.  

GF:  What did your group members think of The Goldfinch? [The book title is highlighted in bold, painting name in italics).

BF:  I asked if everyone liked The Goldfinch, loved it or just appreciated the writing (which is stunning in both beauty and detail) in spite of not loving the story.  Absolutely everyone liked or loved the book.  I liked it but I fall closer to the latter category of appreciating the writing more than the story itself, because I personally found it very difficult to read about Theo's drug addiction. The excerpt, above, is from a scene in which Theo and his friend Boris are experimenting with drugs, hence the sparks flying out of their mouths.  Although that scene jumped out at me as one of particular revelation and levity, in general, the portion of the book that takes place in Las Vegas was absolutely miserable to me.  I didn't like reading about the details of his experience and even tweeted about how happy I was to be leaving Las Vegas, when I got to that point.  

My #FridayReads is THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt. For those who've read it, I've just left Las Vegas. I am relieved. Vegas was rough.
— Bookfoolery (@Bookfoolery) October 11, 2013

However, our group leader found the opening scenes during which Theo lost his mother, realized that he had no place to go and Social Services was going to stick him in foster care the most painful to read.  Nobody else mentioned feeling pained by any of Theo's experiences, although one particular death was a bit more miserable to everyone than the rest (sadly, that is a spoiler).

GF: What other things did you discuss with your group?

BF:  We discussed the length of The Goldfinch and whether or not it needed to be as long as it was, the characters, the theme, the ending, the writing, the relationships between characters, why Theo continued to hold onto the painting instead of turning it over to authorities, the author and her ties to Mississippi.  Our fearless leader had sent us a link to Stephen King's review of The Goldfinch in The New York Times  and we talked about his thoughts and laughed about the comment that it would not be wise to drop The Goldfinch on one's foot.  King's closing thoughts:

There are a few missteps, yes.  It's hard to believe that television coverage of a terrorist attack like the one Tartt imagines would be interrupted with mattress commercials, and there's a lot more about furniture restoration than I needed.  But for the most part, "The Goldfinch" is a triumph with a brave theme running through it:  art may addict, but art also saves us from "the ungainly sadness of creatures pushing and struggling to live."  Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction.

That said, don't drop it on your foot.

GF:  What did your group think of the characters?  

BF:  One member commented that there were a lot of bad characters (drunk, drug-addicted, cruel, etc.) but we all loved Hobie, the furniture restorer whose kindness Theo leans on and from whom he learns the importance of the type of beauty that outlives us.  Andy, an old friend whose family Theo stays with, was also a favorite.  And, everyone wished they could have known Theo's mother better.  During the times he and others reflect upon her life, she is always described with affection.  Pippa, the redheaded girl Theo falls in love with at first sight in MoMA we found a little perplexing; we discussed spoilery bits in regard to her.  Mrs. Barbour (Andy's mother, who took Theo in without question, when he was on the verge of going into foster care) seemed cold, at first, but later in the book  you see her softer side.  Kitsey turned out to be a disappointment but at least she was herself.  

We also talked about the names of the Barbour children: Kitsey, Platt, Andy and Toddy.  I wondered if naming a character Toddy was her polite wave to Ole Miss ("Hotty Toddy" being a cheer/greeting used by Ole Miss students), where Tartt spent a year of her schooling.  

GF:  What about the theme?  Did you agree with Stephen King?

BF:  I can't say I got a good fix on what other group members thought, although I do think there's some truth in his observation.  When I closed the book, I was a little baffled about what it was about.  What was the author trying to say to the reader?  I came up with this as a theme:  "Life sucks and then you die.  But, if you're lucky, maybe some good will come of all the bad things that happen to you."  When I mentioned my thoughts, there were quite a few nods, although I don't think that means anyone found the two ideas (mine and King's) mutually exclusive. 

GF:  What about the length?  Did anyone skim?  Did they think it needed to be nearly 800 pages long or could it have used some editing?

BF:  This part of the discussion was pretty interesting.  Someone asked if anyone skimmed the book and I think it was pretty unanimous that it's not the kind of book that one skims.  For one thing, it is simply too engrossing.  Our leader said she doesn't usually find it a problem to skim over lengthy description and yet, as descriptive as the book was, she felt like every word was important.  Another member said she thought 2-300 pages could have been edited out, although she was glued to the the book's every word, as well, because there were so many surprises and twists that she thought it was critical to read even the details that could have been trimmed. You never knew when something important was going to happen.  

We didn't all agree about where the trimming necessarily should have taken place, had the book been edited down in size.  I didn't mind the lengthy passages about furniture restoration, useless as they may be to me (our aesthetic leans modern; I'll never own antique furnishings) because those were the times when life was most peaceful for Theo. The detailed drug-abuse scenes drove me nuts.  One member said, "But, that's reality - that's just something people go through," the implication being that experimentation with alcohol and drugs is a normal stage of life.  It's a stage I skipped without regret, but I can see her point.  I think the furniture restoration detail is the bit most commonly considered superfluous.  Point to Stephen King.

GF:  Thoughts about the ending?

BF:  I was personally both disappointed in the ending and relieved because I flipped ahead to read the ending and misinterpreted it.  Reading it in context put it the final words into perspective.  But, I still got a negative vibe from the ending.  Our leader read the ending aloud (two paragraphs, I think) and she said she loved the ending.  That third reading made me see it in a different light.  I thought, in many ways, the book was relentlessly sad, with only occasional reprieves, and the ending was . . . a bit dire in its nihilism, I suppose.  Fearless Leader thought it was beautiful and I admit to understanding her viewpoint when she read it.  Regardless, we all thought the book was an excellent read and felt privileged to have the opportunity to read it in advance of publication.  

GF:  What's the release date?

BF:  The Goldfinch is scheduled for release on October 22, 2013.  Just a few days, now!   

GF:  Recommended?  Not recommended?  

BF:  Definitely recommended by everyone in our group - all of whom found it a stunning read.  And, we also thought it was a terrific discussion book.  Although I came prepared with some generic questions, the discussion was organic.  I did have to ask if we could return to the book, after our chatter somehow managed to veer off to politics in Mississippi (probably because we talked about how Barry Hannah discovered Donna Tartt and Willie Morris facilitated her move out of state to finish her education), but by then we'd pretty much hit all the topics on my question list and all I did was ask if everyone liked, loved or merely tolerated the book and after everyone said they liked or loved it, the meeting broke up.  

GF:  Thank you for letting me interview you.  I'd fly away, now, but I have this ridiculous chain attached to my leg.

BF:  Thank you for interviewing me, little goldfinch. And, thank you to Miriam of Little, Brown for providing the copies for group discussion.  

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, Part 2 - The F2F Group Meeting

I've already written my review of Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, so this particular post will be limited to a description of our face-to-face group meeting. 

Recap of what Burial Rites is about:

Burial Rites is about Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a woman convicted of murder and awaiting execution.  Because there are no facilities for holding convicts in Iceland, Agnes is sent to a family farm where she helps with the housekeeping and chores but is still a prisoner, the frigid temperatures and geography enough to keep her from any escape attempt. 

As Agnus gets to know the family and is counseled by a priest named Tóti, whom she personally requested because of a long-ago encounter, her story is slowly revealed. Is she, or is she not a brutal murderer? Burial Rites takes place in Iceland in the 1820s and is based on a true story. 

I'm unfortunately terrible at coming up with group discussion questions, so we got off to a rocky start.  I'd hoped to be the quiet one, since my day was spent fighting a vicious migraine (and I was not entirely processing, thanks to aftereffects of the medication I took) but our Fearless Leader came rushing to the door with the words, "We're so glad you're here! None of us knows what to say about this one." Eeks.

I confessed I didn't know where to start, either.  Little Brown is apparently in the process of coming up with discussion questions but they were not ready in time for our meeting (I did ask).  Part of the problem when we attempted to discuss the book was that everyone liked it.  Even the people who couldn't make it to the meeting but emailed or told our group leader their thoughts all thought the book was excellent.

I've often said the worst-case scenario at a book group is, "Everyone loves it; nobody has much to say," and I hate it that I was proven right during the discussion of Burial Rites.  Still, we did manage to discuss a few things:

• How difficult it was to read the opening, in which Agnes was imprisoned in a dark, cold place, chained and filthy (a couple of us wished we could reach in and hose her down).  
• The oddness of the assistant priest chosen to save Agnes' soul and how she chose him because he was one of the few people who ever did anything kind for Agnes.
• The extreme difficulty of Agnes' life.  One of our members reminded us that the book took place in 1828, when there were "house children and yard children".  
• The fact that Agnes was abandoned by her mother, lived a life of servitude and thought that moving in with Natan (the murdered man, who misled Agnes into believing she was going to be the housekeeper, rather than one of the regular servants) would improve her lot in life.  
• The second dress Agnes acquired, thanks to moving in with Natan. We were all a little mind-boggled at the concept of owning only a single dress (How do you ever wash your one dress?) and talked about how people used to wash seldom and smell awful.
• Natan's cruelty to Agnes. 
• The living conditions on a farm and the typical layout of an Icelandic croft house, the way they were covered in turf to keep out the elements and the design of the shared bedroom/living areas.
• Sex in a shared room and whether Agnes chose to ignore the fact that Natan was sleeping with the other female servant or really didn't know.
• The real circumstances of Natan's murder and whether Agnes' part in it could be considered "murder".
• The fact that Agnes was not allowed to tell her side of the story at trial.
• The setting of the book and how impossible it would have been for Agnes to escape.
• The strange fact that because Agnes' death served as an example, an axe had to be purchased for her execution.
• The kindness of the farmer's wife, everyone's favorite character.
• How Agnes managed to sway her biggest skeptic in the farmhouse.
• What Natan really did for a living and why the single male involved in the murder (three were accused, two convicted) had reason to be angry with Natan.
• Those crazy Icelandic place names and how nice it would have been to have a map. There was no map in the ARC but there will be one in the finished copy.

Sounds like we discussed more topics than I realized, now that I've written it down, but we did go off on a lot of little tangents.  I think just having a list of things to discuss would have been helpful. I'll work harder at listing such things when I'm the one who suggested the title or provided copies of the book, in the future. 

The bottom line is that everyone loved the book.  We agreed that it was well-written and even surprising for such a young, first-time author and that we admired the beauty of her writing.  

I'd like to add that I'm very impressed with my group for managing to share the limited number of copies so nicely.  We only received 10 copies of Burial Rites - not enough for our rather large group -- but only one of the people who showed up for the meeting had not managed to read the book, yet.  When the lone person who hadn't read confessed that she hadn't managed to acquire a copy, one of our other members said, "Here, you can read mine," and shoved it down the table.  I love my reading group.  

Burial Rites is scheduled for release on Sept. 10, 2013.  

Copies of Burial Rites were provided to my F2F group by Little, Brown.  

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson - Review and F2F Report: A Self-Interview of Sorts

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Copyright 2013 
Reagan Arthur Books (a Little Brown imprint) - fiction/historical
527 pp.  
Release date: April 2, 2013

You know how sometimes you love a book so much that when it comes to reviewing you're paralyzed with fear that you're not going to do the book justice?  That's Life After Life, for me.  I've thought about it enough that I've begun to think of my review drafts for Life After Life as The Review that Ate My Brains.  So, to save myself from becoming a zombie, I've decided to salvage my reputation and life with Ye Olde Self-Interview.  I apologize in advance for any inadvertent repetition. I worked on this off and on for weeks and I'm afraid I'm tired of editing, so it is what it is.

Of course, it works best if I'm actually interviewed by someone imaginary.  Today, I'm going to be interviewed by a Renegade Zombie Killer.

Renegade Zombie Killer:  Hi, and thank you for letting me interview you on the roof of a tall building so that I can spot potential danger before it's too late.

Bookfool:  Hello.  Could you maybe put down the guns and knives and . . . all those bullet holders?  

RZK:  Sure, but the protective armor stays.  Let's get down to business.  What's Life After Life about and do you have a Personal Escape and Attack Plan (PEAP) in case of zombie invasion?

BF:  Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is the story of Ursula Todd.  Born on a snowy night in 1910, she promptly dies.  And, then she's born again and lives.  As Ursula continues to live and die, events change -- sometimes marginally, sometimes dramatically.  Ursula is often able to remember enough from past lives to alter her future, preventing previous tragedies to herself and others from recurring.  With her uncanny foresight, will it be possible for Ursula to change the fate of the world when she's able to get close enough to kill Hitler?

That was written in my own words but I have to throw in a link because I adore the description of Life After Life at Stylist.co.uk's "Top 10 Reads of March".

And, my PEAP for zombie invasion is to run like hell.

RZK:  What did you enjoy most about Life After Life?

BF:  Just about everything.  The characterization is amazing, the literary references and occasional sentences in various foreign languages (not translated) challenge readers, the story is unique, the author did a good job of setting apart the various lives lived by Ursula with minor changes of perspective or timing to avoid too much repetition.  I loved the fact that a large portion of the book was set during WWII -- a favorite time period -- and the way it made me think.  You can't just disengage your brain and zip through Life After Life; it's a thinking book, yet Life After Life was one of the most thoroughly entertaining books I've read in a long time.  I also love Kate Atkinson's sense of humor.

RZK:  Have you read any other books by Kate Atkinson?

BF:  No, Life After Life was my first.  She was new to quite a few of my book club's members and many of them commented that Life After Life will not be their last (myself included).

RZK:  What did you personally dislike?

BF: Nothing major.  There was a point at which I briefly thought there were just a few too many Ursula Lives, but I do tend to fade at some point when reading longer novels.  And one of Ursula's incarnations was filled with horror upon horror. I couldn't wait for that life to end. Life After Life has an open ending and I didn't mind that at all.  I liked the way my mind keep ticking over like a warm engine, when the book ended.

RZK:  Can you give me an example of her sense of humor with a little set-up?

BF:  Of course. There's a certain major historical event (one I'm sure everyone's familiar with) that leads to the deaths of a number of people in the book -- not just Ursula, but people Ursula loves -- and in several lifetimes in a row she fails to stop Bridget, the young lady who brings about the events that cause the local deaths.  Also, each time Ursula dies, there's some reference to darkness falling or something like a bat raising its wings -- something definitive to let you know that death has occurred.  This is a passage in which Ursula dies after failing to stop Bridget from setting the deadly events in motion for the third time:

"Oh, the silly girl just tripped," Mrs. Glover said.  "You know how clumsy she is.  Well, anyway," she said with some satisfaction, "that's put paid to your London high jinks." 

"Not so," Bridget said stoutly.  "I'm not missing this day for anything.  Come on, Clarence.  Give me your arm.  I can hobble. 

Darkness, and so on. 

~p. 111

I actually laughed out loud when I read that passage, not only because it was surprising that Bridget still went to London but it was so funny the way Atkinson threw out that last line to say, "Yes, yes, dead again."

RZK:  What did one of the women in your Face to Face book club say she thought the book should have been called and why?

BF:  She thought the book should have been entitled Life After Life After Life After Life because the title tends to make people think it's about an afterlife rather than the same life relived (there were nods all around, to that statement).  I had a fleeting thought that Life Upon Life might have been a better title, although I didn't say that aloud.  Regardless, going into the reading knowing that Ursula's life is a life relived repeatedly helps a bit, as the book can be confusing in the manner of The Time Traveler's Wife.  You find yourself flipping back a lot to reorient yourself.

RZK:  So, this leads to the negatives about the book.

BF:  Yes, therein the most common complaints lie.  All that shifting around between times did cause my fellow club members to use words such as "confusing", "chaotic" or "frustrating".  I have to agree it could be confusing at times.

RZK:  But, you loved it?

BF:  I did.

RZK:  What was the general consensus in your book club?

BF:  We had a show of hands and the majority loved it.  I should add that we had a fantastic turnout.  This particular meeting was amazing because there was is so much to talk about in Life After Life that it was one of those noisy people-hollering-over-each-other meetings.  I love that kind.  The enthusiasm over Life After Life made for a really lively, fun, hilarious and, at times, thoughtful meeting.  I can't recall but I think we had 12 members show up.  Advance Reader Copies were provided by Little Brown and almost everyone who managed to collect a book in time came to the meeting.  3 people didn't love the book.  Those who weren't enthusiastic about it just didn't seem to see the purpose.

RZK:  What was the purpose or theme?

BF:  It's a "What if?" In this case, I think, (my wording) "What if everyone lived the same life over and over but just some people had distinctive enough memories from previous lifetimes to make changes?"  In other words, what if those deja vu sensations or premonitions some people feel more strongly than others (and some don't sense at all) are due to the fact that we keep living the same life over again?  

RZK:  Does absolutely everyone have deja vu or premonitions like Ursula in Life After Life?  

BF:  That part's actually quite interesting and maybe a bit of a spoiler. It actually took me a few days to figure it out, after I finished the book and we'd discussed it.  

********POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING*********  Highlight the following white text to see what I think.

I think the idea was that the book was designed to theorize about why most of us have deja vu at some time but some people have a stronger sense of past lives (and therefore a built-in warning system) than others.  Reincarnation was brought up in our meeting, naturally. The idea is that everyone experiences it but in this case some are more aware of previous events than others. There are hints that other people are also able to make minor changes that impact Ursula's life; they just don't have such strong feelings that they appear freaky, as Ursula does.  The last birth scene, I thought, was very telling.  

RZK:  Deja vu and premonitions are interesting topics that evolve naturally from discussion about Life After Life.  How did that go at your book club?

BF:  That part of the discussion was awesome.  Almost everyone has a deja vu story to tell or can recall a vivid premonition and all the stories are absolutely fascinating.  

RZK:  Did anyone think the book had spiritual connotations?

BF:  Just one person used the word "spiritual".  I think the rest of us shook our heads but you could look at it that way, I suppose.  Reincarnation came up and some people do believe premonitions are a spiritual thing.

I should also mention that my F2F club's members come from nicely varied religious backgrounds and birthplaces (at least one member was raised in another country). I'm so impressed with my group.  They are sharp, open-minded people who will happily shout out their opinions, agree to disagree and leave smiling.

RZK:  Cool.  I'm glad they're not zombies. What are some aspects of the novel that even those who disliked Life After Life agreed that they loved?

BF:  Even the people who didn't love it or felt baffled by its purpose didn't feel like it was a total waste of time because they loved the characters or thought the writing was thought-provoking/intelligent, and the WWII scenes were almost universally beloved.  The author is obviously very learned but she doesn't treat the reader with condescension.

RZK:  Any additional complaints that were mentioned?

BF:  One person thought Ursula's lives were too repetitive.  She also didn't like the fact that the book was open-ended and commented on her frustration over the fact that Life After Life doesn't have a distinctive beginning, middle and end.  I think there were a couple nods to that.  Of the 3 out of 12 who didn't love the book, there was a sense of not getting the point of it . . . that it just kept going, but why?  What was the theme?  What was the meaning of that open ending?

RZK:  Tell us what your group advises about the reading of the book.

BF:  Advice from my group:  Orient yourself early on.  1910 is important to remember because if you know Ursula's birthdate (which never changes) you can figure out her age by subtracting.  That's surprisingly crucial because her lives are often so different that you really need to be able to think back.  What happened at this time or in this place that Ursula will try to prevent or feel compelled to change?

The "What if?" never goes away.  Even in the end, when Ursula has declared that life is ****possible spoiler, hidden by white text, again ****  not circular but a palimpsest, there is a scene that indicates that she'll keep scratching more layers onto that manuscript, possibly forever.  Her mother's final scene, the changeable maybe-off, maybe-on end of an affair, and other little things offer hints that Ursula is not alone in this; she is simply more in tune with her past incarnations. That spoilery bit is about the open ending.

RZK:  I'm out of questions, so I must advise you to build your Zombie-Proof Emergency Shelter and come up with a Personal Escape and Attack Plan, right away.  

BF:  Thank you, but I am amazingly lacking in paranoia, although I suspect we have more than a few zombies in Congress.  

RZK:  Did you hear that sound?  Gotta run.

BF:  *skitters out of the way and shouts "Thank you for interviewing me!"*  

Summary comments on Life After Life:  

Best. Discussion. Ever.  I highly recommend Life After Life for group discussion.  You will want to talk to someone about it, I promise.  Most of our group loved it, although not everyone did. However, everyone had something to say. The worst-case book club scenario is always, "Everyone loves or hates the book and nobody has anything to say about it."  We found that we didn't need pre-written discussion questions to generate conversation; discussion came about easily and organically.  

I gave Life After Life a 5/5 at Goodreads.

Gushy thanks to Jin Yu at Little Brown for providing copies for my group to read and discuss.  

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Into the Free by Julie Cantrell and F2F Report

Into the Free by Julie Cantrell

Copyright 2012

David C. Cook - Historical fiction with Christian elements

368 pp.

I've mentioned the fact that I considered giving up on Into the Free because I didn't think it had a very believable or solid sense of time and place. It's set in Mississippi during the Depression and WWII. Last night was my F2F group's meeting and it's always fascinating to find out just how wrong I am.

Everyone in the group loved Into the Free because it reminded them of their younger days in Mississippi and/or because they found the story gripping. While I felt completely at a loss as to where the book was set, two of the women in my group said they were certain it took place in Meridian (which is on the opposite side of the state from us, due east -- and according to Julie Cantrell's website, they're correct). Nods all around. Only two of us present were not native Mississippians, unless you count the one fellow who spent his first 14 years in Texas.

What's Into the Free about?

Into the Free is a coming-of-age story about a young girl in Mississippi. I looked up the word "bildungsroman" to see if it fits because I wasn't entirely certain and here's the bildungsroman definition I found at Wikipedia:

In literary criticism bildungsroman or coming-of-age story is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age) and in which character change is thus extremely important.

Yes, that certainly seems to fit. Told from the point of view of Millie, who lives in former slave quarters on a wealthy man's plantation, Into the Free is the story of how young Millie survives living in a home with an abusive father (seldom home from touring with the rodeo, but terrifying when he's present) and a mother who kills her pain and depression via morphine addiction. It's about young Millie's confusion, her struggle with belief in God, and her desire to escape. It's also about deciding between two young men who are both interested in her and willing to take her away but who are so very different that Millie struggles to decide whether to let her heart or her head lead her.

Millie has a rotten life, that's for certain. The book starts out with her mother fixing a meal and her father, Jack, coming home to find a ranch hand dropping off a supply of morphine for her mother, Marie. Jack beats Marie to a bloody pulp and throughout the book his anger is explained away as a response to her drug addiction, although she's apparently become addicted to painkillers because of the beatings. It's a bizarre Catch-22 and it didn't work for me, or rather I just couldn't get my mind wrapped around it. Millie's grandparents have rejected Marie and won't have anything to do with Millie, either, because Marie married a Native American instead of a banker.

This next bit contains some spoilers, so skip it if you want to be surprised.

At the beginning, Millie's best friend is the black man who lives in another of the slave cabins, their next-door neighbor. I didn't understand the symbolism but his ghost keeps returning to save her at odd moments. There's a tragic accident, a suicide, two young men who appeal to Millie for different reasons (one of them a gypsy) and yet another rape that I thought was blown off too easily. The women in my group disagreed. They said Millie had been through so much already that by the time she was raped, it was just one more bad thing that happened to her that she had to survive.

I think I'm done with spoilers. It's safe, now.

What I liked about Into the Free:

Into the Free is a quick read and once you get into it it's hard to put down. While everyone agreed it started out slowly and the beginning was a little cringe-worthy, you do eventually become sucked in by the story and the desire to know what will happen to Millie.

I particularly liked three male characters who allowed Millie to escape her horrible world, at least briefly. One was her neighbor, an elderly black widower who took young Millie fishing, put her to work feeding his chickens and was just generally a stable influence. The second person who came into her life and allowed her brief respite was a gypsy boy around her age, River. I can't tell you what happens with River without spoiling the story, apart from the fact that he has to leave and it's the fact that he will return in the spring that keeps her hanging on through tragedy. The third fellow is Kenneth, nicknamed "Bump", a veterinarian in training at the local rodeo, where Millie eventually gets a job. Bump is almost too perfect -- kind, gentle, generous, strong and patient. Millie has a crush on River but feels safe with Bump and therein lies a part of her dilemma.

What I disliked about Into the Free:

I guess the fact that I didn't grow up in Mississippi has a lot to do with my feeling that the book lacked a sense of time and place. It certainly seemed odd to me that Millie said the region wasn't impacted by the Depression. But, then, we really haven't felt the current recession the way many states have because Mississippi is pretty much a poor state all the time. Still, it threw me. I couldn't get a grip on where things were happening. I've never encountered gypsies and I didn't catch on to the symbolism because it's not something I've ever studied (I am always missing the symbolism, unfortunately). And, I thought the ending was rushed, one major incident totally blown off, and the return of River a let-down.

So, why did the people in my group love it?

They adored Millie (I did like her strength but I guess I was blinded by the fact that the story just felt off to me in so many ways) and the time and place were things that most of them could relate to, in some way. Even though none of the people in my group lived through the Depression or WWII, there were apparently still some major similarities between that time and their youths in rural and small-town Mississippi. The gypsies are very important to the book because Millie wants to escape with them; she desires to go "into the free" -- away from her life, out into the world -- with them and falls in love with one of them. They're kind to her and accepting. Most of the people in my group remembered the gypsies.

The really fun part about this F2F meeting:

It is ridiculously fun when the people in my F2F group start reminiscing about their early days in Mississippi. In this case, they got off on a tangent about the gypsies. They said the gypsies were treated like any other outsiders, with suspicion. One of the ladies said she recalled the news about the gypsies' arrival traveling by word of mouth and how everyone reminded each other to bring in the dogs because the gypsies were thieves. "Sure enough, some dogs would go missing every time the gypsies came through," she said. "And, they said the gypsies would come in and steal your babies if you didn't watch out."

Another woman chimed in and said her grandmother knew someone who had a baby stolen by the gypsies, or so they assumed. The child was never seen, again.

The woman next to me, whom we'll refer to as "A.", is originally from Wisconsin and actually lived in my hometown in Oklahoma for a time. She added her thoughts about what it's like to move into small-town Mississippi life from outside. There was a lot of laughter as we talked about things like greeting someone with "Hey," instead of "Hello," which we were both taught was extremely rude and which both of us now use as a greeting. My F2F group can get really enthusiastic about books but they are very open and accepting of each other's opinions, whether or not they agree. They're much the same about listening to our stories about what it's like to be a foreigner in Mississippi. They're just a super bunch of people and the discussion of Into the Free was rollicking fun.

Off the book and into the food:

One of the ladies brought some "Vidalia onion dip". Our group usually just sips wine or water and there are always a couple bowls of nuts, but we're not a group that usually brings food to meetings, so that was unusual. At some point, I asked what exactly was in that dish. It had gotten shoved to the far end of the table and I was curious.

A. pulled it over to me, told me what was in the dip and said, "You must try it. It's addictive." I scooped some onto a cracker and pushed the dish away and A. said, "Oh, no, you don't want to push it away. You'll want more, after you take that first bite."

She was correct. I weaseled a sort-of recipe out of the lady who brought it -- two Vidalia onions chopped in a food processor, two cups of shredded Swiss cheese and "a teaspoon or two of mayonnaise - just a squirt to bind it all," baked till the onion has carmelized, which I'm told is the tricky part. I rolled up a couple bites' worth in a napkin and brought it home for Huzzybuns to try because I figured if he tasted it, he'd figure out a way to make it. I got chewed out for not saving a bite for Kiddo. Oops.

And, then Kiddo kept me up chatting till 2:00 or 2:30 because he was in a chipper mood, which I always love. I am tired but very happy, today -- so glad I didn't abandon the book because last night's meeting was by far one of the most entertaining meetings I've attended.

Julie Cantrell lives in Oxford, MS. Lucky chick.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.