Guest Post by Jennie Shortridge: How to Host an Author at Your Book Club Meeting (Not!)

Let us begin by saying book groups are doing more than anyone to save the publishing industry, and I, for one, love you all. Unequivocally. I will do anything I can to help you have a great meeting when you choose any of my books for your group to read and discuss. I’ve now attended well over a hundred, either in person, by phone, or on Skype.

I’ve made cookies, brought wine, called from my car (hands-free!), sent signed book plates, CDs of music inspired by the book, recipes that come from the book, galleys of my yet-to-be-published books, and generally tried to make myself useful to you. Why? Read the first sentence. And also because we who love books and reading have a certain kinship, a knowing between us. Books can save the world or just your soul on a lonely Wednesday night, and those who get it, get it.

It is with tongue planted firmly in cheek that I offer you, oh dear book group people, this list. It was way too much fun to write, and I hope you understand that I am so very kidding. I love you, I do.

Jennie’s Snarkalicious Step-by-Step Guide for Hosting Authors at Your Book Club Meetings

1. We writers are a happy-go-lucky bunch with not much on our schedules. Writing, after all, is really just sitting around eating bonbons and making stuff up. It’s always best to extend your invitation as close to the actual meeting date as possible. This week? Sure! Tonight? Why not?

2. If the author lives over forty-five minutes away, of course he or she will drive to your home. No need to gather your members and find a nice restaurant in the city, of course not. We like to drive. At night. In the suburbs where every street has the same name. We consider it research.

3. Writers are generally extroverts, which is why we sit in front of computers all day, alone. When an author attends your meeting in person, there’s no need to make introductions. Just take our coat and shove us into the middle of the room so that others may gawk, whisper “Is that the author? I thought she’d be thinner/prettier/younger.” We love that sort of thing.

4. We have no need for food or drink. Even if you’re having the meeting at dinnertime. Ritz and celery sticks? Fabulous. We really should have eaten at home anyway before coming at, what time is it? 7:00? Right. Um, maybe just an olive or two.

5. And of course, we have no time limit as to how long we can stay. Go ahead and talk about your children’s latest cute escapades for that first hour or so. We will nod and smile, even though we don’t know your gifted Ashleigh from her little Robby with ADHD. He did what to a cat? Oh, how amusing.

6. If we’re doing a speaker-phone meeting, by all means, use your inexpensive mobile flip phone, set on a dining room table with twelve chatty women gathered around it. The clarity is less than desired, but the enthusiasm more than makes up for it. Especially after the first glass of wine.

7. Here are the questions we enjoy the most:

a. How much do you make as an author?
b. I’ve written a book, too. Can you send it to your agent for me?
c. Do you have a real job?
d. Why did so-and-so do this-and-such in the story? That’s never happened to me, so I totally didn’t buy it.

8. Here are the questions we hate:

a. What inspired you to write this story?
b. When so-and-so did this-and-such, I wasn’t sure why. Tell us what your intention was with that scene.
c. What other books have you written that we might like?

9. When it comes time for the author to sign books—which we really do love doing as a way to thank you for supporting us and your local booksellers—make sure the vast majority of your group has either, A. shared the same book, or B. checked them out from the library. That gives us a warm happy feeling inside that you are not wasting trees.

10. We don’t require thank yous or nice little gifts. Really! No, no, take back that nice note, that card, that box of chocolates. It’s been such a swell (gurgle, squelch, gurgle) evening (well, make that night as it’s after ten), that I really—What? We’re not done? Oh, okay, maybe one more story about little Robby.

Yes, I know your group would never do any of these things, and if you did, I would still love you, just as a wife still loves the husband who leaves the milk out and the kid who forgets to say “Thanks, Mom,” for help with his homework. We were meant to be together, book groups and authors, and you can always find me at jennie@jennieshortridge.com.

www.jennieshortridge.com

Molly McCall: One Book Group and One Brief Wondrous Novel

Many people agreed that the writing was masterful. Kristen said she wished she could write like this. Marian called the prose “amazing.” Rachel likened the style to jazz; Doug countered that it’s more like Hip-Hop.

But not everyone was cajoled by the author’s musicality. The constant drumbeat of Spanglish slowed Abby down. Susan didn’t find it lyrical at all. And it failed to delight Bobbie.

It was Monday night and the Kepler’s Fiction Book Group had gathered to discuss “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz. There were 11 of us in attendance. (Warning: Spoilers abound!)

I gave a little background on the author and the novel. Then, we started around the circle. Each person said what he or she thought of the book and, if they were feeling so inclined, rated the book on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being the worst-ever grade and 5 the highest honor.

By the time we get to the end of the circle, discussion had already broken out a few times. One 5 had been dished out, two 4.5’s had flirted with the high grade, and a string of 4’s made me nervous that everyone just liked it and the conversation wouldn’t have a spark. Ha! My needless worries.

We spent some time talking about the way Diaz riddled the work with Dominican slang and Sci-Fi references. Did it put you off? Did you let it wash over you? We figured only a small handful of people in this world could get the language and the genre stuff -- so why did he do it? One theory is that it shoves the reader into this semi-alienated space -- a place well-known to Oscar Wao. It’s certainly wildly inventive.

And what about those footnotes? Doug hated them. He found them excessive and felt they could have been worked into the novel if they needed to be there. Other people disagreed and for a moment we were off talking about the footnotes’ content (Trujillo, dictatorships, the terror of life in a place like that) and their influence (David Foster Wallace, bless him, came to mind). Kristen made the point that the footnotes were a kind of working out of the “fatherlessness” in Oscar’s family and in the Dominican Republic.

Unsurprisingly, Oscar himself absorbed a lot of our attention. Some people found him utterly unsympathetic. Marian thought he was “shadowy” and inaccessible. His death, she said, was pointless. Susan was also worn down by Oscar’s victimization. Nick, though, found it disconcerting how little of Oscar was in the tale. He wanted more. Andrea did too, I think. Oscar’s death absorbed some time -- did he die standing up for his true love? Was it suicide? Or one more pathetic act?

From there, we mulled the use of the word “wondrous” in the title, the role women played, the unusual way that Yunior, the narrator, also became a character.

After an hour and a half, we wrapped it up. We could have gone on, but the seats get hard after awhile, and our civilian lives call. It wasn’t a brief talk, but it was wondrous.

On Monday, April 13 we'll meet at 7 p.m. to discuss “The Dead of the House” by Hannah Green. Join us!