What Really Matters at the End of Life

Title: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In the End
Author: Atul Gawande
Host: Joanne

As a bit of scene-setting, here is how the publisher describes this important work: "In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life, but also the process of its ending.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified."

Insights and Opinions

Notes contributed by Steve:
+ I especially enjoyed how our discussion went beyond insights gleaned from Gawande's Being Mortal to how we ourselves define what would make life worth living as we approach the end. Some of the many questions we discussed were how hard we would fight a fatal illness, what types of medical intervention we would endure and what factors would influence our decisions.

+ From there, we asked ourselves what three things we would need to prolong our lives, and we found our discussion so interesting we decided to suggest that everyone give some thought to the question and come with an answer to our January 19 meeting.

+ For me, I don't really know at this point in my life. But I think the three things would be a functioning mind (the ability to think and recall memories), a functioning body (the ability to breathe and eat without tubes), and …I'm not sure about the third one. Maybe the ability to feel and express love. To lose my ability to walk and to read would be very difficult for me, but I don't think so devastating that I would decide life was not worth living. I do know that, if faced with an incurable and painful illness, I would want to choose how and when my life would end and I believe it is my right to make that decision.

+ I realize these are heavy thoughts but we agreed with Gawande's admonition to make plans now for a likely and possibly extended period of frailty and to communicate those plans to family and friends.

Other Stuff

+ For our January book, we talked about wanting to read something light and humorous. And then we decided on Richard Ford's Let Me Be Frank with You. We'll see if that fills the bill.

Next Up: Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich

Date: Monday, October 20
Host: Vicky

From the publisher: When Irene America discovers that her artist husband, Gil, has been reading her diary, she begins a secret Blue Notebook, stashed securely in a safe-deposit box. There she records the truth about her life and marriage while turning her Red Diary -- hidden where Gil will find it -- into a manipulative charade. As Irene and Gil fight to keep up appearances for their three children, their home becomes a place of increasing violence and secrecy. And Irene drifts into alcoholism, moving ever closer to the ultimate destruction of a relationship filled with shadowy need and strange ironies.

Our Reading Life in Middlemarch

Title: My Life in Middlemarch

Author: Rebecca Mead

Host: Blanche

As a refresher: Our group spread the reading and discussion of George Eliot's Middlemarch over two months to give us all a long, leisurely read. Then, we read Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch as the frosting on our three-month literary cake.

In Mead's own words: "I first read Middlemarch, which many critics consider the greatest novel in the English language, when I was seventeen. The novel tells the interweaving stories of several residents of a provincial town in the Midlands; but to describe it this way is a bit like describing Everest as a really tall, ice-covered mountain…So revisiting Middlemarch by writing a book about it was also a way of reckoning with the life I had lived so far: of looking at the choices I had made, the paths I had taken, and considering the alternatives lives I had left unlived."

Insights and Opinions

+ We started with an emailed comment from Vicky, in absentia: "If I could be there tonight, I would talk about how much it meant to me to see how Rebecca Mead connects the novel to her life. One of the last steps in the discussion method I used for years asked that the learner relate the material to his or her life. This often was the most challenging for students. Frequently, they would give general answers and move on. Yet I think it is one of the most important parts of truly absorbing what we read or study.

"So, as I read both the novel (Middlemarch) and Mead's book, I was asking myself 'how does Middlemarch relate to my life? Why am I so moved by the writing?' I see myself in each of the characters. Also, I see how, like Mead, I would have rejected and judged people in my youth, but how I'm hoping I have a wider view with age -- and maybe a little more compassion and tolerance for both myself (all my selves) and others.

"I also appreciate Mead's clarity and understanding for George Eliot and her life -- Eliot's appearance and how others judged her, but how she was able to rise above that and write so beautifully. It would be difficult to save my admiration and love for this novel and for Mead's memoir until the end of the discussion, I know. I'd probably be tongue-tied!"

George Eliot

 + Readers appreciated learning the back stories of each character, which made us sympathetic to the characters in the various circumstances of their lives. Linda thought that understanding and sympathy were what Eliot meant to accomplish. Steve observed that this is a good definition of great art.

+ Everyone agreed that Mead's wonderful command of the English language, along with the elegance with which she employed that language, made the book a joy to experience. She is a writer who is able to convey so many connections in just a sentence or two.

+ We enjoyed the comments from those of us who have been, or are, academics, about "surviving" the teaching of literary criticism as described on page 145 of My Life in Middlemarch. Here, Mead notes: "Books -- or texts, as they were called by those versed in theory -- weren't supposed merely to be read, but to be interrogated, as if they had committed some criminal malfeasance."

+ Shirley liked Mead's description of different reactions to Causaubon, and asked "Doyou agree with Rebecca Mead that Mary was the wisest character?" Our readers saw in Mary, not the fire and passion of other characters but, rather, that she was plain, wise, and funny, perhaps like Eliot herself. Dorothea, on the other hand, hung on to her idealized version of the world longer than she might have had women had more options.

+ We discussed how Mead's book brought attention to Eliot's feminism at a time when such voices were scarce, e.g. giving Dorothea ambition and curiosity with nothing to attach it to but her husband and his work. This led to a discussion of marriage, the difficulties of matrimony not always acknowledged, Eliot believing that there was a limit to the degree of self-suppression and tolerance that even marriage could demand. As Gail said "In marriage, acceptance is rather important."

+ Readers found many comparisons between the working class and the aristocracy and asked "what was Eliot trying to say to us?" Linda pointed out Eliot's trenchant observation in a letter to friends about visiting Dickens' house, awed to be in the man's presence. "Splendid library, of course, with soft carpet, couches, etc. such as become a sympathizer with the suffering classes. How can we sufficiently pity the needy unless we know fully the blessings of plenty?"

+ We wrapped up by discussing how Mead identified with Middlemarch throughout her life and how certain books have influenced our own lives -- perhaps a discussion worthy of our next meeting when we've had time to think about it.

Slow Down and Savor: Your Attention is Required in Middlemarch

Vickie's busted foot. Note the other shoe,
which is actually quite cute.

Title: Middlemarch
Author: George Eliot
Host: Steve

Many of us were missing for the July session for various reasons -- search committee, headache, husband's surgery, too busy, traveling, completely forgot -- but that never stops us from having a spirited discussion anyway. And, since it is, after all, the height of summer, we should be excused for all of that PLUS having read only half a book. In fact, we should get extra credit for even having book club in the summer when everyone else is off water-skiing and whatnot.

Vickie, sporting an attractive boot cast, launched our discussion of Middlemarch by distributing a helpful "tree" of characters and their relationships to each other. This is a big book with a big cast of characters and plenty of complexity to sort out, and we all wished we had had this tree at hand while reading. So here it is, in case you find it useful as we read the second half of the book.

Insights and Opinions

+ First off, it's important to note that our only assignment was to read Books 1 through 4, so that's what we did.

+ By contemporary standards, Middlemarch is a very slow read. It requires the reader to slow down, savor the language, and really pay attention. Steve wondered how many of today's writers would dare stop the narrative altogether as Eliot does to spend many pages describing Lydgate's character. Yet we're glad Eliot does as her examination of Lydgate in minute detail gives the reader critical insight into how he makes the decisions that follow. "Think of the time people had to write like this and read like this," Steve said.

+ As Blanche pointed out, Eliot is brilliantly funny. She skewers the Middlemarchers and their hypocrisy with a deft hand. Mr. Brooke is a dilettante, but such an inept dilettante. What in the world is he talking about? We couldn't make sense of it, nor could any of the Middlemarchers.

The beauty of reading a classic --
editions galore.

+ Liz noted Eliot's acute powers of observation. She is an astute student of human nature, and no nuance of behavior and the many layers of reason behind it escapes her pen. She understands human weakness and vanity. Not one of her characters is flat. They are all many-layered, living people. Causabon is so far caught up in the grandeur of his giant idea, yet so far beyond unable to actually accomplish it.

+ Vickie read My Life in Middlemarch, our book pick for September, at the same time she read Middlemarch, and highly recommends doing so.

+ Ladislaw, the romantic young relative of the prunish scholar Dorothea marries in order to elevate herself, is perhaps standing in for Eliot herself in some key conversations between himself and Dorothea, speaking with the author's voice on matters of love, life, and poetry.

+ We all agreed to being completely mystified by the epigrams that open each chapter. None of them seemed to relate to the action that followed.

+ We wondered -- who is the narrator? Often, she intrudes herself and actually becomes another character, but never identifies herself. She is hovering, no matter what is going on.

+ At this point, everyone started talking at once, making note-taking impossible. Most likely, this was when we made our most intelligent literary points.

+ Some felt that the Garth family are the best characters in the book. Mary is perhaps the most similar to Eliot herself, with her down to earth practicality. Of all of the characters, Fred and Mary are perhaps the most ideal as a couple, All of the other couples are in love with something beyond the actual person.

What happens when you don't take
the picture until too late in the game.

+ Margy wondered if perhaps we weren't missing too much by not having intimate command of the language of the time. What does Eliot mean by "an ordinary sinner" when referring to Mary? Did this phrase have specific resonance in Eliot's time? Eliot was writing about contemporary social life, but to us in the 21st century, it is a somewhat foreign land.

Other Good Things

+ The Turtle House Ink blog post on Summer and Middlemarch is particularly relevant, not to mention written by Vickie.  (This, by the way, is a wonderful blog for writers). Check it out here.

July's Read: Middlemarch, Books 1 through 4, by George Eliot

Having decided that reading all of this classic for a single session was much too aggressive for a lazy summer, we are reading Books 1 through 4 for July, and then books 5 through 8 for August. That should give everyone plenty of time for reading, long walks, al fresco dining and trips to various cabins.

New Starting Time is 7 p.m.

It's not really a new starting time, but since we spent so many years starting at 7:30, a friendly reminder is in order.

Speedy Decisions, A Poetic Refusal and Sweeping Reform

With uncharacteristic efficiency, our May group of readers chose books for the next three months, changed the start time for future meetings, ratified a constitutional amendment forbidding resignation, and amended the amendment to allow sabbaticals of non-specific duration. Whoa.

New Starting Time

From here on out, meetings start at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30 p.m. since we all want to be home and in bed by 9:30. Reminder: The first 30 minutes of every meeting is dedicated to chit-chat so come prepared with nuggets of chat.

Book Selections for June, July and August

June

Dancing Fish and Ammonites by Penelope Lively

Host: Gail

July

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Host: Steve

August

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead

Host: Shirley

New Rule: No Resigning

Vickie's attempt to quit book club was rejected with many reminders of why it's important to stay, even if you aren't able to read the books or even attend very often. We don't care. You are still in the club. Come when you can. Faith's poem, written just for this occasion, says it best:

For Vickie with Love
Vickie darling, Vickie dear,
Now, see here. See here!
You surely know we'd cry and put
Should you pack up and just walk out.
Come for treats. come for wine,
come for love. That's just fine.
You haven't read a single line?
To tell the truth, I've read just nine.

May's Read: Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

Title: Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932
Author: Francine Prose
Host: Linda

From the Amazon book description:

"A richly imagined and stunningly inventive literary masterpiece of love, art, and betrayal, exploring the genesis of evil, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itself.

Paris in the 1920s shimmers with excitement, dissipation, and freedom. It is a place of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. It is at the Chameleon Club where the striking Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing lesbian, finds refuge among the loyal denizens, including the rising Hungarian photographer Gabor Tsenyi, the socialite and art patron Baroness Lily de Rossignol, and the caustic American writer Lionel Maine.

As the years pass, their fortunes -- and the world itself -- evolve. Lou falls desperately in love and finds success as a race car driver. Gabor builds his reputation with startlingly vivid and imaginative photographs, including a haunting port rail of Lou and her lover, which will resonate through all their lives. As the exuberant twenties give way to darker times, Lou experiences another metamorphosis -- sparked by tumultuous events -- that will warp her earnest desire for love and approval into something far more."

Great Expectations in Literature and in Life

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
Host: Lois and Gail

It was the best way to begin -- a celebration of Joanne's 90th birthday, complete with a poem written by Faith and cupcakes that looked like spring flowers. Happy birthday, Joanne. And thank you for your wisdom words:  "Patience and Fortitude."

Insights and Opinions

+ First, of course, we had to compare the different editions we had read. Joanne's small red volume with thin pages was a 1942 edition. Steve's copy was from his college years and contained a long list of all of the characters, with more notes on the inside cover. This is obviously a well-loved book, one that many of us remembered fondly before reading it again and have kept with us through the years.

+ How interesting it is to read later in life a book that we first read in our youth. Many of us found the characters more endearing than we had remembered. There was great appreciation for the humor and irony of the novel and for the complexity of the characters, especially Pip as he matures. Steve suggested it would be a good book to read aloud, chapter by chapter, to savor its beauty and humor. Good idea.

One book, many editions.

+ Since our last book choice was Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, we discussed the similarities between the two novels. Vicky pointed out the use of metaphor in both works.

+ Dickens' plotting skills are masterful. He does not leave out important details. Characters and details mentioned earlier return. "It all works out in the end," said one group member.

+ We discussed the two endings. The first leaves no hope that Pip and Estella will get together. "I see no shadow of another parting from her," reads Dickens' revised ending, leaving the relationship between the two ambiguous but within the realm of possibility.

+ All in all, the group (at least those who were able to finish it before meeting time) loved this classic.

Oddments and Telling Details

+ Steve's new book, Mastering the Craft of Writing: How to Write with Clarity, Emphasis and Style, has just been published by Writer's Digest Books and is available on Amazon. Congratulations, Steve!

+ We also learned about Linda's visit with Jerod Santek, a staff member at the Loft Literary Center for more than 25 years, who is now director of Write On, Door County. Linda recently led a workshop for Jerod's board of directors.

+ And of course we can't forget the poem Faith wrote and shared on behalf of our beautiful Joanne.


To Dear Darling Joanne on the Occasion of Her 90th Birthday

She is:

She seems pretty excited about that cupcake.

A role model without peer,
More fun than a glass of beer
On a hot summer day. What can I say?
She's an intellect with humor and grace
And a smile that warms the whole damned place.

She wears ninety like a boa of sequins and laces.
In short, we agree that the girl's simply aces.

With much love from the Lofties.

A bit of spring beauty
to fete Joanne.

April's Read: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
Date: April 21, 2014
Location: Open Book
Host: Lois and Gail

From the Amazon book description: "In what may be Dickens's best novel, humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman -- and one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of "great expectations." In this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, the compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride."

Since we always read different editions of classics, this is bound to be an exhilarating and potentially confusing club discussion.

Come prepared to suggest books for May, June and July.

What We Forgive Ourselves

Title: Dear Life
Author: Alice Munro
Host: Shirley at Liz's

From the publisher: "In story after story....Alice Munro pinpoints the moment a person is forever altered by a chance encounter, an action not taken, or a simple twist of fate. Her characters are flawed and fully human: a soldier returning from war and avoiding his fiancee, a wealthy woman deciding whether to confront a blackmailer, an adulterous mother and her neglected children, a guilt-ridden father, a young teacher jilted by her employer." In addition, "four autobiographical tales offer an unprecedented glimpse into Munro's own childhood."

This book is a multi-award-winner, and Munro herself won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013.

Insights and Opinions

+ Our conversation opened with this question from Shirley: "Which of these stories do you remember most?" Now, this may seem an odd start to a book club discussion about a story collection, but we asked because we all admitted to having a hard time remembering any. Yet all of us had a strong memory of the book itself -- not the stories, not the plots, but the mood, the color, Munro's writing. When pressed, we flipped through our pages, calling out specific stories. "Oh yes, Train!" "Oh, of course, Amundson!" Munro takes you deeper than the story. How is that possible? It's Alice Munro magic.

+ Munro's characters are layered and often inscrutable. Their behavior is often surprising and sometimes inexplicable, but completely right for the story. We wondered if the motivation of Munro's characters was era-specific -- is it that the people in her stories are uncaring? Or, are they a reflection of a time in which reflection just wasn't done, where passion was kept in check?

+ Munro tells us herself, in the final line of her final semi-autobiographical essay, when she is explaining why she did not go home for her mother's last illness or funeral: "We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do -- we do it all the time."

+ From her warm-weather hideaway, Vickie sent us these notes:

"I was reminded of hearing Charles Baxter discuss "counterpointed characterization" when I was a student in the Warren Wilson MFA program. HIs lecture later became a chapter in his collection of essays on writing, Burning Down the House. (Here) is a quick summary...as described by writer Lee Martin in his blog:

'"In this chapter ("Counterpointed Characterization"), Baxter takes to task the conflict model for the structure of a short story. That is to say, the protagonist pitted against an antagonist; one person wants something, another person wants something else. Voila. Conflict. Baxter argues that stories often don't work that way. He says the conflict can actually be very slight in a short story, and that often counterpointed characterization creates the tension.

By counterpointed characterization, he means the pairing of characters who 'bring out a crucial response to each other.'"

+ Vickie pointed to "In Sight of the Lake" as one example which seems to place the man who meets Nancy in his private garden and leads her to the "home" as a counterpointed character to Nancy. This man has come to his home after a friend died. He is kind, but he does lead her to a very different kind of home -- one from which she will not have the ability to come and go as she pleases. The ending of this story is stunning and shows why Munro is such a master storyteller.

+ The last four autobiographical stories are an amazing group. It is so clear in these how she has used the themes of her life in her fiction, but these are looser and less tidy that her other short stories. Even in these, she can't avoid those mysterious people who appear in our past. As Vickie pointed out, "this story has another amazing ending, which shows me Alice Munro's honest but strangely ambiguous reaction to those things we do in this 'dear life'."

+ Linda, who had to miss our conversation, said by email: "There is a lot to commend Dear Life, especially the marvelous, interesting characters. I underlined several passages in the collection, but …. I loved this quote from "Dolly" -- 'Who can ever say the perfect thing to the poet about his poetry? And not too much or not too little, just enough."

+ In the final analysis, we agree: These are wonderful stories. All of them.

Other Details

+ Next month, we read The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, at Joanne's house.

+ For April, we will be reading a classic. After some names were batted around, we settled on Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The motion carried.

A Work of Fiction that Mirrors A Frightening Reality

Title: Flight Behavior
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Host:  Gail

Barbara Kingsolver's latest work of fiction, Flight Behavior opens with young Dellarobia Turnbow's desperate climb from her narrow life in rural Appalachia up the mountain behind her home and toward an illicit affair sure to ruin her life. Instead, she is brought to her knees by an astounding sight -- "The forest blazed with its own internal light." She has no explanation for what she sees. "The burning trees were put here to save her. It was the strangest conviction she'd ever known, and still she was sure of it."

Monarchs clustered in trees near Angangueo, Michoacan, Mexico. 

What Dellarobia sees as a forest fire is, in fact, something more terrible. The entire population of East Coast monarch butterflies is wintering on an Appalachian hilltop instead of their natural winter haven in Mexico. Shifting weather patterns have upset the natural order, and the monarchs are in the wrong place, where the continued annual migration from Canada to Mexico and back is now in jeopardy. Soon, Dellabrobia's community is overrun with scientists, reporters, and sightseers, and her life spins forward on an unpredictable trajectory.

Insights and Opinions

+ Kingsolver is a gifted writer whose works we all look forward to reading. But while she has imagined an ingenious plot here, we found ourselves feeling the book veers too close to a polemic against anti-science boobs, with some characters who are more caricatures than fully rounded people we could believe. The female TV reporter represents more of a type than an individual, as do the graduate students. Even Ovid, who is a central character, reads flat and only comes fully to life toward the end of the book in the scenes that take place after his wife joins him on Dellarobia's land.

+ Through most of the book, Ovid exists only in Dellarobia's head. We see him entirely through her eyes and her imagination. But he never gets to be on stage, unless he's making a speech that supports the author's position.

+ Shirley observed that Kingsolver's women characters are the most fully realized. Dellarobia's husband  Cub seems so stunted -- and certainly that is Kingsolver's intention -- but his diminished self renders him more of a cardboard cutout on the page than the living, breathing, understandably limited man we wanted him to be. His limitations are so profound, it's difficult to believe that Dellarobia's friend Crystal finds him fascinating and attractive. There are writers who are weak at getting deeply into the opposite sex, and it doesn't hurt the book. But in this case, it does.

Female monarch butterfly in May

+ Kingsolver clearly has an agenda, and we get it. But she is preaching to the choir here.

+ Having said all that, the more we discussed the book, the more we found to like about it. Kingsolver's prose is a pleasure to read. Her small descriptions of life are sometimes stunning and profound, as when Dellarobia discovers that her mother-in-law Hester has always expected her to leave. "It was an earthquake, an upheaval of buried surfaces in which nothing was added or taken away. Her family was still her family, an alliance of people at odds, surviving like any other by turning the everyday blind eye." Kingsolver is a wonderful storyteller and an important voice. We just want her to write the people, not the cause.

Articles worth reading

Migration of Monarch Butterflies Shrinks Again Under Inhospitable Conditions

Migrating Monarch Butterflies in "Grave Danger," Hit New Low

Oddments and Telling Details

+ Our conversation kicked off with a round robin on each person's methods for maintaining physical balance, which mostly involved things to do while brushing one's teeth.

+ Joanne had actually been to the monarch over-wintering spot in Mexico, and brought pictures to share with us. Really quite wonderful.

+ If you have a yard or garden, do the butterflies a favor and plant some milkweed!

+ We chose a book for March: The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

January's Read: Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Title: Flight Behavior
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Date: January 20, 2014
Host: Gail
Location: Open Book

From the publisher: "Flight Behavior is a brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day Appalachia; a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial that explores how the complexities we inevitably encounter in life lead us to believe in or particular chosen truths. Kingsolver's riveting story concerns a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tennessee who experiences something she cannot explain, and how her discovery energizes various competing factions -- religious leaders, climate scientists, environmentalists, politicians -- trapping her in the center of the conflict and ultimately opening up her world."

"If I'm kneeling, I must be praying."

Title:  Tumbledown

Author:  Robert Boswell

Host:  Faith

A full ten years after the publication of his last novel and nearly thirty years after leaving a job in counseling to pursue writing full time, prose master Robert Boswell is back with Tumbledown, a complex and compelling novel published by our own Graywolf Press.  Populated by a large cast of offbeat characters, the story's lynchpin is James Candler, a therapist at Onyx Springs Rehabilitation Center. Candler is on track to become the facility's youngest director, a promotion he knows he doesn't deserve.  His "clients" -- the beautiful but damaged Karly, the serial masterbator Alonso, schizophrenic Mick, angry Vex, bitter Maura -- assemble elaborately complicated boxes in the sheltered workshop that is his signature therapeutic program.  Boswell's novel is no less intricate or satisfying to piece together.  

Insights and Opinions

+ Faith began the discussion by admitting that she hadn't read the last half of the novel carefully and was confused.  Did James quit his job or was he fired?  Did Mick die or survive his suicide attempt?  But even if you read the book closely -- and many of us couldn't put it down -- there are no simple answers to these questions. A straightforward and compulsively readable narrative until late in the second half, Tumbledown takes a stylistic turn when the author addresses the reader directly and offers two alternative endings. "Human behavior is no simple matter," he tells us, "and the unfolding of a single act can paper a house. This book is that house." We were undecided about whether the dual endings worked or were, in Lois' opinion, a "cop-out."  Comparisons were made to our August book, Jewelweed, with its similarly large ensemble of misfits. But unlike David Rhodes, Boswell doesn't provide a tidy resolution. English professor Shirley commented on the tendency towards indeterminate endings in recent fiction.

Still life with Valentine wine.

+ Tumbledown also features a large cast of secondary, "normal" characters who are dealing with their own personal demons -- James' recently widowed sister Violet and sexy fiancee Lolly (British slang for money), his stalking mistress Lise Rae and hapless best friend Billy Atlas. They all gather in Candler's sprawling suburban house for the novel's climactic scene. Despite -- or possibly because of -- Billy's questionable judgment and unprofessional behavior,  he ultimately finds the personal happiness and career satisfaction that alludes his smarter, more successful friend. We all loved Billy for following his heart rather than the rules.

+ We are a group who take words very seriously. Faith had a few quibbles with the odd choice of words in phrases like, "he trammeled down the stairs" and found the characters' names curious, i.e. James Candler (a person who examines eggs for fertility). Even the title is an unusual use of tumbledown, which commonly refers to dilapidated buildings rather than lives that are falling apart. But we all agreed that Boswell's writing is exquisite and original. As Lois put it, "the way he describes things is quite slant," and we appreciated the off-kilter wit of his wordplay.  

+ Perhaps not surprisingly, we took a particular interest in Candler's sister and her work as an editor. "I should have warned you," her husband tells her after a particularly disappointing evening with an author. "Meeting a writer is always a letdown. They're never as interesting as their work. If they were, then they would have failed their books. They write to be better than themselves." This led to a freewheeling conversation filled with interesting anecdotes about writers and a particularly funny story about Linda's meeting with a famous (and surprisingly humorless) Minnesota author. Afterwards, Joan Drury gave her this memorable piece of advice: "Just because you like pate' doesn't mean you should invite a goose to dinner."  

+ Two of our group had the opportunity to meet Robert Boswell while he was in town this fall and assured us that it definitely was not a letdown.  Among other things, he discussed his experiences working as a counselor (for more, see the interview with Boswell below).  Tumbledown is dedicated to "all the clients who survived my tenure as a counselor and to the one who didn't." Joann felt this experience contributed to his empathy towards his characters and suggested that the dual endings reflected his attempt to come to terms with past mistakes.

+ And with that, we were off on tangents ranging from the impact of aging on IQ and fiction's ability to teach empathy, to school guidance counselors' power to stifle a child's interest in reading for life.  It must have been the delicious Valentine wine.

Tumbledown: An Interview with Robert Boswell

Other Bits

+  Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel (our roundly criticized June selection) was named one of The New York Times Notable Books of 2013 and included on several "best of" lists including Book Riot's 7 funniest (!) novels of the year. Hmmmmmmm.

A lovely reminder to keep on working.

+ We missed several members of our group who were off traveling because of work or winter, and circulated a card for Blanche, who was recovering from a bad fall. Since then, we've received this update: "I'm doing quite well -- the lack of balance is something I've dealt with for years and they're finally taking seriously now that I've broken my neck! I'm going to a center which deals with it not far from our Florida place. The sooner I get off the ice the better!  I really appreciate your concern and good wishes and hope to be back at book group soon."  

+ We choose Dear Life by Alice Munro for our February book and added Someone by Alice McDermott to the list for future consideration.  Gail will host the January discussion of Flight Behavior at Open Book but we still need a host and location for our February meeting.