No Shortage of Sound at Jack's

Dinner and Acknowledgments...January found the Man Book Club exploring a collection of twelve loosely connected short stories in Ben Shattuck’s The History of Sound. While the stories ranged widely—from lost love to murder mystery—recurring settings, characters, and ideas quietly tied many of them together, often across decades.

The book was selected by the evening’s host, Jack, who set the mood with Cape Codder cocktails and Cape Cod chips before leading us fully into New England with clam chowder, Johnny cakes, and a hearty Guinness beef stew. Dessert—a memorable Old Rasputin chocolate cake—provided a fitting finale before discussion began.

Our Review and Discussion of The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck

Jack opened the conversation, noting how much he enjoyed the short story format and the subtle ways several stories were connected. He admitted, however, that readers needed to brace themselves emotionally before starting each story, especially the final piece involving recording cylinders (“Origin Stories”). Jack appreciated Shattuck’s writing style—clean dialogue, no long sentences—and singled out the interaction among the three friends heading to the cabin in “August in the Woods” as particularly effective.

Glenn enjoyed the book overall but questioned why the Winslow notes in The Journal of Thomas Thurber ended before the murders were resolved, feeling the conclusion came too abruptly. He also appreciated “The Auk,” especially its exploration of an extinct bird and the weight of loss it carried.

Stan liked the collection but found that the abundance of short stories made it difficult to latch onto a single character or storyline.

Larry felt the book was uneven. Some stories, like “Graft,” drew him in, while others, such as “Radiolab,” felt more contrived. He noted a recurring theme throughout the collection: the pivotal moments in life where choices permanently alter one’s path. He cited “Graft” as a prime example, where a young girl’s decision to scar her face reverberates throughout her life, forcing reflection years later when she encounters a young boy in a museum. Larry also mentioned characters who linger in regret, wondering what might have been—such as the young gay man who never follows up after a transformative summer encounter.

Terry appreciated the short story format, finding it allowed him to suspend disbelief more easily. He enjoyed the ambiguous endings and admired how Shattuck subtly knitted storylines together across the collection.

Andrew found the book charming, describing it as a blend of parables and O. Henry–style surprise endings. He highlighted stories like “Graft” and “Tundra Swan,” both of which explore how seemingly small decisions carry long-term consequences—whether a self-inflicted scar or stolen trees that are never put to use.

George also liked how the stories were connected but found the shifting timelines—sometimes spanning over a century—confusing.

Tom admitted he had only made it about a third of the way through the book but said that so far he was enjoying it, with “Graft” standing out as his favorite.

Doug found the collection uneven but engaging. He noted that it’s uncommon for short story collections to be linked in this way, and for him the book felt like climbing a ladder—each story an extension of the opening poem. Doug especially liked how Shattuck blended themes of nature and the arts and enjoyed spotting the small “Easter eggs” that tied stories together, such as the grafted apple tree from “Graft” reappearing in “Tundra Swan.”

Dan, the final reviewer, said the book wasn’t his favorite. He struggled with the frequent jumps in time, particularly in “August in the Woods,” where the narrative suddenly leaps forward seven years. Despite recurring settings and references, Dan found the new characters and storylines disorienting and felt the collection was hard to follow as a whole.

The MBC was especially pleased to welcome two infrequent attendees, Peter and George. It was great to reconnect—Peter newly retired (again) and George visiting family. Though Peter hadn’t had time to read the book, his presence added to the evening’s convivial atmosphere.

Our Rating of The History of Sound

Overall, with twelve distinct yet loosely connected stories, members gravitated toward different aspects of Shattuck’s writing—style, structure, theme, or emotional resonance. This may reflect Shattuck’s tendency toward ambiguous endings, as seen in stories like “Graft” and “The Silver Clip,” which leave readers to imagine what comes next. In the end, The History of Sound offers twelve New England stories and invites readers to linger over their meaning, their connections, and their unresolved conclusions. With these thoughts in mind, we gave Shattuck's collection a well-deserved 7.9.

Up Next:  Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Paul's proposed titles for next month were eclectic, to say the least.  With Nabokov's Lolita and Spigelman's Maus both vying for our approval, we instead tilted in favor of criminal justice and a memoir of hope and redemption.  No, not the one by Anthony Ray Hinton, who was freed after 30 years on death row, but rather the memoir by his supporter and longtime capital defender, Bryan Stevenson.  We'll see if our choice is vindicated when we meet in March at Paul's.  In the meantime, we'll convene in Tahoe in February and see if any of the early January snow still remains.

Catching Up On Our 2023-2025 Books

After Paul's phenomenal luncheon in July 2023, MBC continued reading and eating, but its online posts went quiet.  Thanks to Larry's initiative, our blog posts resumed last May.  What happened during our hiatus?  Here's a condensed account, with apologies to certain hosts (and authors) for more than a few omitted details:  

September  2023  Host - Larry

We met at Larry's to dine on beef/rice/corn/almonds (yes, those are my notes!) and talk about Ishiguro's (then) latest novel, a prescient tale of AI embodied in a robot named Klara.  Purchased as a companion for a sickly child, Klara develops an intelligence and sensitivity that forces one to ask what it means to be human and to love. As a group, we didn't love the book but we found ourselves deeply affected by its characters and the ambition of its author.  For that, we gave it an 

8.0.

November 2023  Host - Stan

Stan hosted us for our discussion of Geraldine Brooks' novel Horse.  Since our meals are often themed with our books, Stan avoided uncomfortable questions about the provenance of his entrée by serving seafood, not red meat. Once we'd tucked in and begun discussing the book, a clear consensus emerged: no one liked the modern frame story, but everyone liked the novel's inner story.  

The development of American horse racing in the south, as illustrated by the champion Lexington (whose offspring included the famed Preakness), and the role of the enslaved trainers and groomsmen, was a story fascinating unto itself.  What was not fascinating was the forced 21st century story of art, love, and racism.  Nor were we persuaded by the sanitized diction of Brooks' 19th century characters. (The use of the word "slave" is studiously avoided by both oppressor and oppressed.)

If Brooks' intention was to prod her reader into seeing and thinking about a southern economy built on slavery, it certainly worked.  If not for the clumsy framing of an otherwise interesting episode in American history, we might have rated it higher than 6.5. 

December 2023 / January 2024  Hosts - Glenn and Doug

Due to its length, we read Kingsolver's much-acclaimed Demon Copperhead over two months.  In December, 2023 we and our spouses dined in Glenn's barn and shared passing comments about the novel.  But only passing, because Glenn's food and venue were too distracting to allow for more. Then in January, 2024, we retreated to Doug's for a fuller discussion of this 2023 Pulitzer Prize winner.  (We also enjoyed Doug's roast pistachio salmon and his two excellent desserts--a whiskey cake and a toffee cake, the former perhaps a reminder of the substance abuse so central to our story?)

Yes, the novel is long, and yes it's a re-telling of David Copperfield, but it's populated with an unforgettable cast of characters drawn from rural Appalachia (U-Haul, Fast Forward, Maggot, Angus, and of course Demon himself). We found Kingsolver's narrative about the cycle of poverty, domestic violence, and opiate addiction uplifting in spite of its themes.  Our comments said it all: "among my top 5" (Andrew), "did not want it to end" (Jack), "great characters" (Glenn), "fascinating" (Roy), "developed a complex relationship with the book" (Paul, who always develops a complex relationship with our books), and "puts Hillbilly Elegy to shame" (Doug). Our effusive reaction pushed Demon Copperhead to the top of our ratings with an 8.9.

February 2024  Host - Dean

Dean hosted us in February for a discussion of Toni Morrison's 1988 Pulitzer winner, Beloved.  Naturally, we ate as our novel's characters ate--or rather, as they fantasized about eating.  Dean's turkey, homemade bread, butter, and blackberry pie were taken from the meal enjoyed by the novel's protagonists (all escaped slaves) just prior to the arrival of the bounty hunters.

Our enthusiasm waned though when it came time to share our reactions to the book. A rewarding read? Maybe. A painful read? Absolutely.  From the outset, Morrison makes it clear the reader's on an arduous journey.  Her characters suffer almost unendurable trauma, only to realize that freedom cannot exorcise the pain of memory. Morrison's famous line aptly reflects her characters' pain and her white reader's guilt: "...the future was a matter of keeping the past at bay."  Before we set aside our discomfort, we applauded Morrison with an 8.0. 

April 2024  Host - Terry

In April, we gathered at Terry's to share our reactions to Kingdoms of Savannah, a mystery set in today's south but with the legacy of slavery haunting the margins of every page.  Alas, we were not impressed.  But we were impressed by Terry's menu.  With oven-fried chicken, beans, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and chocolate cake, Terry's version of southern comfort food was pitch perfect.

On the surface, Green's novel had the earmarks of a successful southern gothic mystery: a wealthy, landed class bent on protecting its own, a matriarch whose dysfunctional family eventually pulls together, and a murder whose investigation sets fire to it all.  Unfortunately, it had a dime store paperback feel (Jack), plenty of misogyny and twisted characters (Paul), a candy high after our previous titles (Dean), and was overwrought and unbelievable (Doug).  The most interesting plot development (i.e., the revelation that the island targeted for development was the ancestral home of free Blacks who fought for the British during the Revolutionary War) is saved for the end, but by then it was too late for most us.  Our 6.0 rating said it all.

June 2024  Host - Roy

Our book in June gave Roy the perfect opportunity to display his Japanese culinary skills. Accompanying the freshly-caught panko halibut was an egg custard (Chawanmushi), spinach salad with black sesame (Goma-ae), a cucumber salad (Namasu), and bean sprout with sesame and vinegar (Moyashi). 

His bounty contrasted with the bleak post-war environment depicted in No-No Boy, which chronicled the struggles of Japanese-American men who, while interned during WWII, were given loyalty questionnaires. Those who, for reasons of conscience or principle, answered "No" and refused to serve in the US military were sent to a federal penitentiary.  

We all were deeply moved by the plight of the novel's protagonist, Ichiro, who returns to Seattle after the war and can find neither work nor a place in the Nisei community.  We were also touched by Larry's account of his family's internment experience.  However, we were not impressed by the quality of the narrative: few likable characters (including the protagonist), aimlessly plotted, and an ending without closure. If not for its evocation of a seminal moment in our nation's history, No-No Boy would not have earned our modestly positive 6.9 rating.

August 2024  Host - Tom

When Tom hosted us in August, he served us old-fashioned southern food to aid our discussion of a middle-aged man's return home to Memphis, at the request of his sisters, to deal with his father's infatuation with a much younger woman.  Despite its 1987 Pulitzer Award for Fiction, Peter Taylor's finely-etched story of marital, sibling, and generational conflict failed to interest us nearly as much as Tom's menu for the evening.

The writing was fine in an old-fashioned sort of way, but there was too little to sustain our interest.  As a quiet study of southern manners, the story might have worked.  But when the message is simply that there's no escaping 1) your southern roots, 2) your domineering father, or 3) your own miserable relationship, our response is: 1) it's unsatisfying, and 2) it ain't Faulkner. Garth's comment was the most damning: the book felt like Ambien laced with Thorazine.  

September 2024  Host - Jack

In September Jack introduced MBC to Dennis Lehane and his 2023 novel about family, race, and mob politics during Boston's 1974 school desegregation crisis.  With some criticism for its "beach read" feel and its pat ending, we mostly found Small Mercies to be a worthy end-of-summer escape. 

Primed with Jack's excellent shepherd's pie, we dug into Lehane's murder mystery in South Boston and found ourselves mired in a discussion of the effects of school desegregation in the 1970s. Dean saw it in San Francisco, Roy lived through it in Indiana, and Stan experienced it in Marin County. Tom, on the other hand, noted that his large public high school in Siskiyou County was almost entirely white. With those asides, we concluded that the strength of Lehane's novel (apart from a mystery well told) was its ability to paint the various shades of hate and racism in convincing detail.  For that, we awarded him a 7.5.

October 2024  Host - Larry

In October, we convened at Larry's for a delicious paella and a spirited discussion of Percival Everett's 2001 satirical novel, Erasure.  Any discussion of Erasure is complicated by the nested narratives that Everett clearly had fun assembling.  The reader learns at the end that the story is in fact a movie about a story about a book written by an impoverished academic posing as a Black street kid with an authentic new voice. The whole thing is a send-up, the ultimate meta-narrative. So our comments on the story wandered into and out of the main story and the street kid's story (aptly named Fuck) with mostly appreciation for Everett's cleverness.

Doug chided us for falling into the very trap set by the novel's protagonist, a professor who is so white in culture and upbringing that he has to contrive a ghetto story written by a fictional hoodlum in order to sell his work.  But we didn't mind.  Dean liked the Grateful Dead reference in Stagg R. Leigh's name; Larry appreciated the novel's focus on racial identity and belonging; Paul and Glenn enjoyed the implicit taunt to like the story or be seen as racist; and Terry, always the outlier, suggested that the book had virtually nothing to do with race but was merely about selling a winning formula.  We gave the book an 8.2 for its "novel" approach (Stan's pun), and we excoriated Terry for his iconoclasm.

January 2025  Host - Paul

At 945 pages, and in clear violation of our 500-page limit, Lonesome Dove required an extra month of prep, which meant we met next in January.  The delay was worth it:  Paul treated us to a feast of Old West-inspired fare, with appetizers of crickets in molasses, a single roast dove (lonesome indeed!), and cowboy skillet bread.  The rest of the meal (vegetarian chili, pork adovada, brown and white rice, corn bread, and blueberry cobbler) was almost anti-climactic. Even with our stomachs full, we found much to dissect, share, and ultimately praise in McMurtry's magnum opus.  Despite its flaws and its age, Lonesome Dove's greatest virtue is its storytelling, with characters both convincing and compelling. And with few exceptions, it held us captive for almost 1,000 pages. For that, McMurtry's 1985 novel ascended to the top of our ratings with a 9.0.

March 2025  Host - Dan

After a string of novels, Dan brought us back to non-fiction with an account of the rise and fall of Venezuela under the Chavez/Maduro regime.  Fortunately, the food scarcity endemic in today's Venezuela had no effect on our meal, as Dan plied us with a delicious all-Venezuelan menu of stew, beans, rice, plus a tasty chocolate cake courtesy of Penny.

As to the book, our discussion languished at times. The problem with discussing non-fiction is that it's rarely interesting to recite facts to others who read the same facts. Facts need context, and Neumann provided some, but mostly he just expanded a series of articles (he was the NYT's bureau chief in Caracas) into a book.  Our takeaways included: yes, the erosion of democracy in Venezuela's early days of Chavismo feels eerily similar to what we see here today; Venezuela's long decline into authoritarianism can be attributed to a national fascination with strong leaders; and Venezuela's massive oil wealth proved to be its downfall. For a narrative both interesting, tedious, and depressing, we couldn't muster better than a 6.7 rating.

Tequila, Bourbon, and (White) Powder at Jack's

Dinner & Acknowledgments

Last Thursday we met at Jack's and, in a first, practically ignored the dinner he placed in front of us.  Instead, our attention was riveted on his selection of appetizers.  Well, one appetizer in particular.  Since a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, here goes:

A fitting appetizer

Yes, to complement a book about one man's incarceration for drug trafficking, Jack treated us to lines of cocaine and shots of tequila and bourbon.  (The liquor was real; I can't vouch for the coke.)

Our Review and Discussion of Marching Powder by Rusty Young and Thomas McFadden

When he proposed his list of book titles, Jack explained that Marching Powder made the list because, while he and his wife were traveling back from Machu Picchu, their train companions were reading the book and touting it as the real-life story of an Englishman ensnared in a byzantine criminal justice system and locked up in a most extraordinary prison.  Their comments were enough for us, and our comments during dinner were almost as enthusiastic.

Caught leaving Bolivia with a suitcase of cocaine, Thomas McFadden is sentenced to serve 6 1/2 years at the San Pedro prison in La Paz.  He learns quickly that San Pedro is unlike any prison in the west. There are few guards patrolling the prison, there are no cells and no curfews, and no food or clothing is provided.  Unable to speak Spanish, McFadden almost dies from exposure before he is befriended by another inmate who shows him how to survive (and later thrive) in the self-governing underground economy that is San Pedro.

We were all enthralled by McFadden's story.  Much like Among the Thugs, another non-fiction account that aroused our interest (but in the hooligan subculture of British soccer), Marching Powder revealed a world so unlike the one we know (and read about in Bauer's American Prison) that we forgave its repetitive writing and bloated length and were instead absorbed by McFadden's triumphs:  his lucrative prison tours to foreign backpackers, his relationship with an Israeli girl who is allowed to live with him, his prison business successes (including a convenience store and a restaurant), and his eventual release two years ahead of schedule.

Our Rating of Marching Powder

McFadden surely would have garnered a 10 if we rated on novelty alone, but we don't and so the book's significant shortcomings yielded it a 6.8.  Doug, in a rare act of defiance, refused to read it.  Stan, in an all-too-common act of defiance, gave it a 10.  Dan didn't finish but promised he would.  (Well, did you, Dan?)

Next Up:  The Wager by David Grann

Paul put us on track for summer with 3 seafaring titles.  We set aside Master and Commander and Captain Blood and instead chose The Wager, David Grann's latest non-fiction blockbuster.  We meet next in the lovely town of Glen Ellen, a rather different locale from that depicted in Marching Powder.

A Sellout at Jack's

Dinner and Acknowledgments
We met last Wednesday at Jack's and learned that Jack had spent the day on a project in Sacramento and had hurried back for our meal.  If he had any concern about feeding a small army, he didn't show it. He must have prepared everything the day before, pressed his wife into service, or lied about his work itinerary.  Regardless, when it came time to take our places, we were treated to quintessential American comfort food.  A hearty beef stew, plenty of winter vegetables, a mixed salad, and a fruit dessert that was more healthy than it needed to be.  (Thank goodness for the box of See's Candies that materialized next to the fruit.) Kudos, Jack, for turning out a fine meal under pressure.

Our Review and Discussion of The Sellout

Approaching our meeting, I queried whether Paul Beatty's profane satire about race in America allowed our group of mostly white men to adopt the idiom of Beatty's characters and use the N-word during our discussion of the book.  The quick response from our host:  No.  While we never felt muzzled, this forced awareness of the language of race is one of many subjects Beatty happily skewers in his award-winning roman a clef.  (More on that below.)

Beatty's novel begins and ends with the narrator's appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend his participation in a master-slave relationship (he's the master, albeit unwillingly, of Hominy Jenkins, the last Little Rascal) and his initiative to segregate the local high school by excluding whites and Latinos.  Between those appearances, Beatty's narrator explains his unconventional outlook on race by sharing the details of a zany childhood tormented by a psychologist father whose best experiments were always about race and always on his son. About his tortured upbringing, he says:

Talk about starting life off with a handicap.  Fuck being black.  Try learning to crawl, ride a tricycle, cover both eyes while playing peek-a-boo, and constructing a meaningful theory of mind, all with one hand.

While race stands at the center of his novel, Beatty exposes innumerable cultural stereotypes to comedic effect, even if his range is exhausting and at times impenetrable.  On one randomly selected page, he references Pantone 342, the Sistine Chapel, Banksy, The Thomas Guide, Sacagawea, Surenos, KLON, The Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and Fruit Town. Jack summed up our feelings when he declared that he wasn't sure if he got it all. (Terry gave up and said he didn't miss what he didn't understand.) All of which made us wonder how those Man Booker Prize judges in England were able to sift through Beatty's rapid-fire assault on American popular culture and decide it was worth an award.

Since we weren't sure if we were in on the joke or the butt of it (as George noted, the white couple gets chased out of the black comedy club on the novel's last page), we grew more critical as we went around the table.  Larry panned the story as episodic and unlikely to stand the test of time.  Dan agreed and likened the novel to a series of Seinfeld episodes, i.e., all about nothing. Tom and Dean found it funny at times, but not necessarily enjoyable.

Rating The Sellout

A roman a clef is a story whose fictional characters are disguised figures from real life.  The key ("clef") to which characters represent which real people is the reader's challenge.  In The Sellout, Beatty renders certain prominent blacks in cryptic fashion.  His "negro diplomat" is "C _ _ _ n  _ _w _ _ _"; a "noted TV family man" is "_ i _ _   _ _ _b _."  These characters weren't hard to decipher (Powell and Cosby).  Since we couldn't say the same for other characters and cultural references, we were hard pressed to give Beatty better than a _.8.

Next Up:  Ski Weekend and (optionally) A Nation of Sheep by William Lederer

In January, we head to the Sierras for a weekend of skiing.  We didn't select a book.  Instead, George urged us to find a copy of Lederer's 1961 title, A Nation of Sheep  (Lederer co-wrote The Ugly American), and reflect on its commentary about individual liberty falling victim to the media and big government.

Our Appointment at Jack's

Acknowledgments
As Dean observed, Jack treated us to the "two-fifty dinner" last Wednesday with his chopped iceberg salads and surf and turf entrees.  The ambience was further enhanced by the bottles of Speakeasy beer and small batch rye whiskey that made the rounds.  With a black tie optional dress code, it was as close to O'Hara's fictional Lantenengo Country Club as this group will ever see.  Special thanks to Jack's guest, also named Jack and also a Cantab, who good naturedly played along--sartorially and otherwise.

(Note to photo ed.: Photoshop trousers onto Jack R before publishing)

The Book
Published in 1934, Appointment in Samarra was John O'Hara's first novel and was an immediate literary and commercial success.  With both the Great Depression and Prohibition as its backdrop, O'Hara's novel exposes the social pretensions and economic friction of Gibbsville's arriviste country club set by charting the tragic downfall of its protagonist, Julian English. His demise is foretold in the book's title, which is taken from the book's epigraph by Somerset Maugham.  (Thanks to Doug for letting us in on the licensing fee O'Hara paid, and then passed on, in order to use this excerpt from Maugham's 1933 play, Sheppey.)

Despite my misgivings that O'Hara might read as a lesser Fitzgerald, none of us felt let down.  Instead, we enjoyed dissecting the social stratification at the heart of the novel and, as Tom put it, found a little of everything for the Man Book Club.  Several noted that the principal characters were irredeemable (Jack, Doug, Tom), and Paul--with his commentary about deception--found a suitably twisted/misogynistic cast of characters among the Lantenengo set. I was struck by the anti-Catholic bias that animated much of the story (and suffused so much of O'Hara's later writing). For Stan and Terry, it was the setting (Depression/Prohibition) that was especially vivid.  For Larry, it was Julian's impulsive act with the ice cube.  As the novel's set piece, this breach of decorum sets in motion the events that lead to Julian's suicide.  Finally, in a shameless display of male sensitivity, our guest noted that O'Hara's story features unusually strong, sexy female characters.  I'd accuse Jack of pandering, but who among us didn't love Caroline?!

There were some protests (our host openly admitted he liked Ten North Frederick better and George walked out when we told him the ending), but unlike one critic's headline reaction to O'Hara's next novel (Butterfield 8), our consensus 7.7 rating showed no "Disappointment in O'Hara." By the same token, none of us was willing to agree with Stan's conclusion that Appointment in Samarra is our best read to date. (But it was better than Hunger, Stan!)

Next Up
We read next Joseph Wambaugh's powerful true crime work, The Onion Field.  Paul couldn't persuade us to orient our moral compasses thru martial arts, nor could he nudge us back to Afghanistan with The Kite Runner.  So we will meet in September to discuss Powell and Smith's notorious 1963 police kidnapping.  Extra credit will be awarded to those who also watch the movie, starring James Woods and--in his film debut--a young Ted Danson.

2013 Redux

In June we gathered at Roy's, ate well from his table loaded with food from Sol, and discussed Michael Ondaatje's second-most famous novel, The Cat's Table. Recalled from a much later vantage point, Ondaatje's narrator describes his journey as an 11-year old from Ceylon to England.  Ostensibly an account of 21 days aboard ship, the novel proved to us to be so much more.  Ondaatje gave us a beautiful examination of wayward youth, lost innocence, misplaced recollections, and the pain of  friendships also misplaced. With no one dissenting, we happily awarded Ondaatje an 8.1 for a story so well told.

July arrived and, instead of simple afternoon cocktails at Doug's, we dined and discussed Dave Eggers' A Hologram for the King.  Surprisingly, we were to a man slightly underwhelmed by a novel that otherwise boasted so many of the elements necessary for our approval.  Eggers' protagonist, Alan Clay, an American businessman in his mid-fifties, has bottomed out financially and is desperate to redeem himself with a sales commission on a deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  The product:  a holographic telecommunications system.  The client:  King Abdullah.  The setting:  a speculative city waiting to be built in the desert. With a huge nod to Waiting for Godot,  Eggers' story of ambition and failure, of a father's love and a spouse's betrayal, of a disappearing old economy and a mystifying new economy unfolds in a series of reflections and diversions as Clay waits and waits for the King to appear for a promised presentation of the hologram. We found Clay alternatingly pathetic and sympathetic, and perhaps because none of us has suffered so keenly the emotional toll of middle age, we couldn't quite forgive Clay his inability and unwillingness to move ahead.  A mildly pessimistic novel tempered our optimism and produced merely a solid rating (6.5).  Like Eggers' protagonist, our rating could and should have been better.

We declared a bye in August and reconvened in September at George's house for a fine German dinner, with schnapps from Roy and a drinkable Malbec (with an Urban label!) from Doug.  We had to decide whether we erred in selecting The Book Thief as our reading for the month.  Amid criticisms that Zusak's novel was written for young adults, boasts a female protagonist, and exceeded our 500-page limit, we nevertheless concluded that it was well worth the extra pages.  Set during WWII in Munich, and told from Death's perspective (yes, Death is the first-person narrator), Zusak's story centers on young Liesel Meminger, a girl whose poverty combined with her fondness of reading compels her to steal books.  With heartbreaking commentary on Jews, Jesse Owens, hunger, schoolyard bullies, bombs, Nazism, heroism and selflessness, and above all parental love, Zusak had us early in his story.  We all but admitted that our 7.7 rating would have been higher but for the book's YA designation.  Shame on us!

We met at Jack's in October and, with mouthfuls of tri tip and roasted autumn root soup, we dug into The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.  Written by Brady Udall (to us baby boomers, better known for his relationship to Reps. Morris and Stewart Udall), Edgar Mint is about as bleak a novel as we've read to date.  Yes, there is redemption and closure (of sorts) at the end, and more than a little black humor en route, but Edgar's journey is filled with so much pain that the reader can only cringe as the obstacles mount. His story begins when, while living with his alcoholic mother, his head is run over by a mail truck.  He is taken to a hospital where his only solace is--you're not going to believe it--a urinal puck! Thence to an Indian reservation reform school where bullying and beatings are routine and supervision absent.  And then to the dysfunction of an adoptive Mormon family.  And all the while, in the background lurks the strange and seemingly predatory surgeon to whom Edgar owes his life.  We argued over the transitions between first and third person POV (Doug and Stan), we agreed that Udall is wildly imaginative (Paul and Larry), we found in Edgar the consummate survivor (John), and generally marveled at the co-existence of stereotypes and eccentrics in this coming-of-age/survival/nativist tale.  Udall really made us work for it, so we gave him a solid 6.8 for his and our combined efforts.

We bypassed November and met at Paul's in December. In recognition of Dashiell Hammett's role in the development of the noir genre (both book and film), Paul's menu went berserk.  Starting with a black truffle brie and black olives, then to an entrée of black rice, black beans, and blackened chicken, Paul had us wash it down with sips of Johnnie Walker Black. Dessert, naturally, featured blackberries.  Way to go, Paul!  As for Hammett, his The Maltese Falcon managed to stand up to the passage of time.  But since the entire genre has been co-opted, adapted, and reinvented many times over, the novelty was absent.  Dean felt it read a little like a Law & Order episode.  Moreover, the dry, potboiler writing felt stilted when compared to the sharp dialog we recalled from the movie.  Several of us (Larry, Tom, and Paul) found ourselves mentally toggling back and forth between Hammett's original tough-talking Spade and Bogart's archly classic cinematic version. All of us, though, enjoyed the 1920's San Francisco backdrop, from old street and hotel names to the city's colorful and checkered history as a port of embarkation to the far east.  As a quick read and a sentimental mood piece, we favored TMF with a 6.9 rating.

Jack's Pastime Is a Fine Cassoulet

Acknowledgments
Jack's hospitality was tested last Tuesday: he had to come up with a meal that would reflect the French sensibility of Salter's magnum opus, he had to do it on short notice, and he had to keep his doors open late enough to accommodate a couple of stragglers (I had an excuse; I'm not sure about Peter).  By all accounts, he set an outstanding table.  With a delicious cassoulet, flavored by bottles of Bordeaux and followed by his own chocolate mousse and a cheese and fruit platter, Jack proved that Garth isn't the only one capable of Marin-style haute cuisine.  Most of the men were gone by the time I showed up, and it was just as well. From the individual ratings given to this book, I was dismayed to find myself yet again the outlier.  The remaining cognac and brie were little consolation. 

The Book
James Salter's third novel, A Sport and a Pastime, catapulted him to prominence in the 1960's and established him as possibly the best living American novelist that no one reads anymore.  What a shame, as this short novel about an American college dropout's (ahem, a Yale dropout, naturally) affair with a poor young French woman is beautifully evocative of a straitened post-war, post-colonial France.  It also delivers its story via a painfully conflicted narrator whose self-conscious re-telling forces the reader to think critically about the relationship he describes between Phllip Dean and Anne-Marie Costallat.

Too bad I showed up after everyone had shared their thoughts about this fine, if somewhat precious novella.  Jack gave me his notes and, from what I can deduce, no one else but John found the narrator as intriguing as I did.  Instead, I gather there were references to the Mitchell Brothers theater in San Francisco (thank you for that special memory, Larry), an appreciation for Salter's frank sensuality (Dan can't wait to read more Salter titles), and a real conflict between those who enjoyed Salter's writing (Terry and Dean) and those who didn't (Tom, who labored through the first 50 pages, and George, who gave it a miserly 3!).  In the faint praise department, Stan decried the book as brief but banal, and not nearly as erotic as Dear Abby.  (Stan, since your wife shares her first name with the late Abigail Van Buren, what are we to make of your comparison?)

The end result was an almost equal number of 6's, 7's, and 8's, which--when combined with George's 3--pushed Salter a little below midpack at 6.6.

Next Up

Paul proposed four survival-themed titles for next month's meeting (our ski trip has moved to guarded status given the pessimistic snow forecasts).  His theme is apropos, as the meeting marks our 50th dinner together--quite an accomplishment for a group as diverse as ours.  As for our book selection, Man Eaters of Kumaon and Unbroken fell off in the first round of voting, leaving a duel between Ghosts of Everest and Endurance.  In the final round, the group chose Hemmleb's acclaimed account of the 1999 expedition that discovered the corpse of legendary mountaineer, George Mallory, whose disappearance whle summiting Everest in 1924 became the stuff of legend. 

Jack proves there's nothing rotten in the state of Denmark

Acknowledgments
Jack threw open his suburban Orebyslot on Tuesday and helped us celebrate Stegner’s quasi-autobiographical journey to Denmark by offering plenty of Danish trimmings to go with his All-American grilled sausages and chicken. With warm weather and idyllic golf course views, the pickled herring, Danish blue cheese, and Carlsberg on ice evoked a summer night at the Tivoli Gardens. Indeed, the mood turned romantic on the patio when one of us reminisced about his Danish tryst years ago…but I shall stop before I violate our rules of disclosure.

Additional thanks to John and Roy, who each brought bottles of flavored aquavit (let’s use the Swedish spelling since no one wants to say “aqvavit”) to complement Jack’s bottle encased in a slab of ice. (Note to Jack: I would be tempted to sneer at any man who apes Martha Stewart, but your clever adaptation of her party trick certainly captured my fancy.)

And, finally, a big thanks to the multi-talented Armando, who cajoled us into a photo shoot by the pool and later managed to photoshop Peter in and John’s devil horns out. Scroll to the bottom of the blog to see the results.

The Book
The Spectator Bird drew a strong rating for the simple reason that a record number (5 of 15) failed to finish the book and therefore excused themselves from the voting. Had they read it, I suspect the average would have fallen below 7.3. I also think some gave the book the benefit of the doubt simply because it was Stegner, everyone’s favorite West Coast novelist-cum-environmentalist. (Witness both Garth and Stan, who loudly rounded up from 7.5 to 8.)

The book was divisive in other ways (beyond its inability to hold everyone’s attention for a scant 214 pages). Some liked the story’s movement between present and past using a 20-year old travel journal; others found it tedious and contrived. Some sympathized with the aging narrator’s perspective; others felt he was simply crabby (likening him to Steinbeck in Travels With Charley). Finally, some found inspiration (or at least closure) by the end, while others were left wanting. Most everyone, though, was impressed by the writing. Glenn and George found plenty of passages worth reflecting on, with Glenn going so far as to look up the English translation of the last line in Goethe’s Faust in order to make sense of the German version quoted by Stegner. Whether it was the quality of the writing or Stegner’s reputation, only Dan was sufficiently underwhelmed that he gave the book a 5; the rest of us gave it a 7 or 8.

Maybe The Spectator Bird didn’t match the breadth or insight of Angle of Repose (according to John), Crossing to Safety (me), or Big Rock Candy Mountain (Stan, I think), but its reflections on memory, aging, and the enduring power of relationships are vintage Stegner. That’s, of course, my humble opinion.

Next Up
Glenn proposed three eclectic titles for next month (Snow Crash, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and Flatland) and, worried that we had too little to choose from, he augmented his list with two more interesting possibilities: Atul Gawande’s Complications and Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Sometimes too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing. Paralyzed with indecision, we eventually culled through the original titles and came up solidly in favor of Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk/sci-fi classic, Snow Crash. I do hope our selection won’t require us to dine virtually next month.