Book club discussion

     I went with one of my friends to her book club meeting on February 15^th.  This is a book club that meets on every third Monday of the month where the attendees take turns opening their home up and leading the meeting.  On this particular night, my friend and I went to the designated home for the meeting, and I’ll call her the leader,  greeted us at the door as she lead us back to the kitchen and family room where she had a huge spread of food and wine for the book club members.  It started out with everyone showing up one by one and conversations revolved around what had been going on with them over the past month.  So conversations about husbands, children, and work took place for about fifteen minutes while the members got their food and wine. 

     Eventually we all settled in the family room, where the leader began to speak about the read of the month:  Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf.  The story line of the book is about an elderly widow who lives close to an elderly widower.  They knew of each other in past years but never on a personal level.  The widow is toying with the idea of having the widower stay at her place in the evenings and sleep with her at night.  It’s not a sexual proposal, but one of consoling each other and dealing with the loneliness they have both experienced by losing their spouses.  Of course there are the meddlers and the gossips that are woven into the story, but it is a very bittersweet story of how this relationship between the widow and widower evolves.  

     A few broad open-ended questions were asked such as “What did you think of this book?”, and then the question of “Would you ever consider doing this if you were in the situation of the widow?” popped up.    It’s a Yes/No question, but it opened a whole can of worms that derailed the conversation away from the book.  This was my first book club experience, so I wasn’t sure if this was the norm for an informal book club or not.  The question led to members divulging personal information, and also veered into topics of sex.  I have to mention that this book club consisted of about ten women who were between the ages 40 – 55.  This topic of marriage or committed relationships in the latter years of women’s lives comes up quite often in conversations, and isn’t something new that was the result of reading this book.  Outside of the five minutes that the book was actually being discussed, the women all took turns talking.  There wasn’t just a person or two dominating the conversation, and everyone had a chance to speak.  But the conversation wasn’t around the book.  Instead it was about personal feelings on the topic of what would you do if your spouse passed away?  Would you get involved in another serious relationship or would you prefer a “friends with benefits” type situation?  Since I hadn’t read the book, and all the participants knew I was there to observe, I didn’t share in the conversation.  Thank God because I was a little embarrassed by what some of the member were revealing.

     I’m always up for a girl’s night of intimate conversation, and these women all seemed to know each other very well.  Apparently this club reads books from a variety of genres, and March’s read is The Martian, but I was a little disappointed that the February read, Our Souls at Night, didn’t get much discussion.  I would have liked to have known more about the book’s appeal and the different characters that were involved with the story.  This book club seemed more like an excuse to get out of the house to eat, drink, and visit with friends.  I may go back just for the fellowship, but I definitely wouldn’t call this a book club.