Almost Too Much Excitement for Our Small Group

Title: On Sal Mal Lane
Author: Ru Freeman
Special Guest via Skype: Ru Freeman
Special Guest in the Flesh: Jocelyn Hale, Executive Director of The Loft Literary Center
Host: Chris

Well, where to begin in describing a wonderful night filled with luminaries, stimulating conversation, shrimp cocktail, and Open Book? At the beginning.

Joining us via Skype from Collegeville, Minnesota, where she was guest-lecturing at the College of St. Benedict, Ru Freeman -- the author of our discussion topic On Sal Mal Lane -- was generous with her one spare half-hour, and with her willingness to answer our questions.

Author Ru Freeman joined the conversation via Skype from
the College of St. Benedict.

Our one cardinal book club rule is this: No one gets to start the discussion with "I loved (or hated) this book "because it closes down nuanced conversation right from the get-go. But with the author in the room (at least on screen), we threw that rule out the window. This is an astounding work by a wise writer. It will break your heart and leave you with a first-hand understanding that war happens to real people, even those who live on a quiet street like Sal Mal Lane.

Insights and Opinions

+ The book's pace at the beginning is slow and dreamy. We need to meet each of the families on this small dead-end street in Sri Lanka. It takes some doing to master the names and remember which characters are Tamil and which are Sinhalese. There is a new history to learn, and most of us here in the U.S. know nothing about cricket. Very slowly, the story builds. Joanne started the book, and put it down. Then she picked it up again at the urging of a friend and never looked back. Lois stuck with it and "when I got to a certain point, Joe asked 'what happened to my wife?'" As Margy so aptly put it, "I don't think you could do it any other way, and still have it end so powerfully."
+ This is not a book to read episodically. Read it in just a few sittings, and allow it to build and build. Freeman uses a wide-angle lens, and then narrows it tighter and tighter until it reaches its final focus on a stunning end-point. It is tough going at the start, but stay with it. You will fall in love.
+ Chris felt like she grew up on that lane -- that it was a street like any other in the world, with children playing and knowing each other despite their parents' opinions, religions, or political leanings. And this is the author's intent. "The point of the book is to make people feel like that place is their place, and that those children could have been their children, and to make war personal to you even though you weren’t born there," Freeman said. "People’s ethnic backgrounds and skin color may be different, but that story is not particular to one place."
+ Linda loved the representation of so many groups on one small lane. "I could picture every one of those families. It is a microcosm of the world, and the situations that so many people face."
+ Unfolding the story through the eyes of the children is a brilliant device. There are hints about unhappy marriages, and child abuse, but you see it only through the children.
+ There are also lessons to be learned about grieving in this book. Each child finds a different way to grieve, and the reader sees ways to grieve healthily and give something back.
+ Ru closed her call with us by reading the unpublished epilogue, which will be included in the upcoming paperback.
+ The rest of our conversation involved plot points that would spoil the book for anyone reading this who hasn't already read the book, so we'll stop here.

Other Interesting Bits

+ Jocey Hale brought us up to speed on exciting changes at The Loft Literary Center and at Open Book, and we are so grateful to her for joining us for this session. The Loft will be 40 years old in 2015 and exciting plans are afoot. What she pointed out -- and what we all already know -- is that involvement with the Loft is transformational. We see daily evidence of this in the lives of so many that we know.
+ Faith sent a letter, asking that our next meeting be at her house, even though she says the house "looks like the Hesperus after it was wrecked." We will bring all of the snacks and wine and she is NOT to lift a finger.

Ru Freeman loves her publisher! Here, she plants a big
one on Fiona McCrae, Graywolf Press

+ Some of our number were lucky enough to be included at a Graywolf Press luncheon a few days after book club at which Ru Freeman was an honored guest. At the luncheon, Freeman offered even more insight into the writing of On Sal Mal Lane. She grew up on a multi-ethnic dead-end lane in Sri Lanka, went to a convent school but was more interested in play than study, and had two very protective older brothers who are the models for Suren and Nihil (including his ability to recite poetry and sing backwards). The book is dedicated to them: "For my brothers, Arjuna and Malinda: Loka, who provided the music of our childhood, and Puncha, who kept me as safe as he could.