John's Immortal Evening

Acknowledgments
The meal John prepared on Tuesday would rank among our top five--if we had such rankings.  Aided by Dean, Tom, and Mark, John prepared and named the following courses, each reflecting a different sentiment evoked by our book:

Blood, heart, and liver.  Essential to our circulation, blood was transfused as bloody martinis, served from a hanging IV drip bag.  Our most important muscle, heart was rendered into skewered calves hearts sourced from a grass-fed beef producer in West Marin.  And liver was transformed into a foie gras brought in fresh from Sonoma and served on toast. A fine starting course.

Eat Your Veggies.  With this life-enhancing mandate, we weren't allowed to be choosy.  John served us a soup pureed from his own selection of organic vegetables from the farmers market.

Last Supper.  When confronted with one's mortality, only the best will do.  John obliged with a filet mignon, sous vide, accompanied by mashed cauliflower and bacon jam and smashed potatoes with caramelized shallots.

Brain Brownies.  What else but scratch brownies and vanilla ice cream topped with a bourbon and orange bitters drizzle?  Well, here's what else: for a touch of verisimilitude, mini brain lobes in the form of walnut halves atop each brownie.

Thank you, John, and we hope you enjoy your well-deserved trip to Iceland.  We also owe thanks to Paul (and his ever-patient and absent wife Jane) for allowing us, our guests, and a photographer to take over his beautiful home for a night. 

The Book
Atul Gawande's Being Mortal is one physician's attempt, in plain English, to expose our frequent resort to aggressive medical intervention as we approach the end of life.  Whether through experimental therapies, life-sustaining assistance, or institutional confinement, we too often seek to extend life without understanding the implications or the alternatives.

Gawande's presentation was disturbing and enlightening at the same time. I felt that his book was a barometer (measured by one's level of unease while reading it) for our readiness to make the hard decisions that lie ahead. Almost everyone shared his own story of family illness and death to illustrate our collective discomfort with what may be an unclear or even false choice as the end nears (i.e., quality over quantity).  While Armando, always the naturalist, read Being Mortal as a field guide to getting old, the scientist in Roy wasn't persuaded.  He found Gawande's prescriptions premature in a world of constant innovation and advancement.

Gawande's recurring question to end-stage patients is:  what do you most want and what are you willing to give up in order to get it? Illustrated by the stories of his patients, Gawande claims that quality of life is desired most and that, surprisingly, less intervention can prolong rather than shorten life.  We discussed his premise and the anecdotes sprinkled through the book (guest Mark declared the book a sales pitch for hospice care; guest Keith noted his personal connection to Sara Monopoli, one of Gawande's featured patients).  In the end, Paul pronounced Being Mortal the "most relevant" book we've read given its insistence that we set clear expectations for the end of our lives.  Tom then exhorted us to have our affairs in order by year end (with a current estate plan and advance healthcare directive).  Amen, Tom!

More disturbing than the book's focus on mortality (and Glenn's recent brush with same) was the tragic coincidence that longtime MBC friend and guest, Charlie, was killed and his wife Dorothy injured in an auto accident that same afternoon in New Jersey.  Present at our progressive holiday party in December, Charlie was a thoughtful, artistic man whose presence will be sorely missed.  Recover quickly, Dorothy.  Charlie remains in our thoughts.

RIP Charlie Kleiman

Next Up
For April, Larry made us choose between several outstanding writers: Adam Johnson (new to MBC), Annie Proulx (gasp! a woman!), E.L. Doctorow (the title--Andrew's Brain--gave it zero chance), and David Lipsky (recounting his five days with David Foster Wallace).  We went with Johnson's 2013 Pulitzer winner, The Orphan Master's Son. Here's to an evening of political and social repression, Pyongyang-style.  I trust Larry, our Dear Leader for the evening, will not visit famine upon us.

Middle America, Middlesex, and an Ending

With apologies to John, Larry, and Peter, here is an abbreviated and belated summary of three outstanding evenings in the preceding months.

Last December, we arrived at John's house with exceedingly low expectations.  With 1950's Iowa as his backdrop, and knowing that Roy had already mined the era to produce his Midwestern Manhattan-style sandwiches for our discussion of In Cold Blood, John's menu choices appeared limited. Or so we thought. John surprised us by pulling from his warming oven individual foil boxes he'd hand-filled with gourmet meat loaf, organic spuds, and fresh veggies.  Not Swanson's.  Not Hungry-Man.  Just outstanding!

Our reaction to The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid was more muted. We enjoyed Bryson's many references to a childhood that resembled our own.  From Glenn's memory of the x-ray measuring machines in shoe stores, to Larry's recollection of hi-fi cabinets and early color TV's, to our collective memories of delivering newspapers and driving to Disneyland--Bryson had us reminiscing about simpler times.  But it wasn't enough to achieve more than a middling 7.0 rating.  As noted by Paul, Bryson's memoir, while funny and evocative, is a book about not very much.  There is an aimlessness to the narrative that left many of us wanting more.  So we helped ourselves to dessert, talked about growing up, and relaxed in the company of John's excellent guests, Mark and Don.

In early January,  we went skiing.  And a good thing, too.  By late January the snow in the Sierras was declining fast and very little more came our way.  Fortunately, our bye month gave us an extra 30 days to finish reading Jeffrey Eugenides' best known work, Middlesex.

When we met in February, Larry's dinner nicely captured the Greek immigrant story at the heart of Middlesex with servings of lamb and beef gyros (on two types of homemade pita bread!) followed by  assimilationist brownies a la mode (yes, the vanilla ice cream was also homemade).  The book was received almost as well as the dinner.

Many considered it a rich, evocative tale (multi-layered, according to John) that suffered from a single, significant distraction:  the lengthy revelation that the main character, Callie, is a hermaphrodite.  Doug, who was born only 5 miles from Greek Town, wasn't convinced of its import but figured it was Callie's fate given the secret of her forebears. Contrast that with Paul who, having read the novel on his iPhone, complained that the first 2100 pages were mere foreplay to the main act (presumably the reader's epiphany about Callie, but as usual Paul wasn't saying). From there our discussion evolved into commentary about the Greek  diaspora (who knew Peter's hometown of Melbourne boasts the second largest expat Greek community?) and of course hermaphrodites (Terry warned us not to research the subject via Google images; Armando noted that post-coital snails eat their penises to separate). (Editor:  My notes are quite specific on this last point.)  Our 7.5 rating was boosted by Stan who proclaimed the novel "a brilliant work of art," despite having read it over five years ago and retaining only the dimmest recollection of the story line.

Peter's dinner on March 19 was a well-conceived and even better executed St. Patrick's Day meal, replete with corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and competing apple and rhubarb pies.  Maybe it's his Commonwealth upbringing, but leave it to Peter to serve up Irish food to accompany our discussion of Julian Barnes, an oh-so-English contemporary novelist.

Barnes' The Sense of an Ending generated an unpredictable reaction.  Unlike Banville's The Sea, an equally introspective novel that had most of us on the fence, we all genuinely liked Barnes' effort.  Like Banville, Barnes delves deeply into the fissures of unreliable memory, in this instance through the perspective of Tony Webster, a retiree who discovers a painful part of his past.  For most of us, the pleasure of this novel was the gradually building suspense that precedes the narrator's realization of the pain he'd caused his school friends long ago.  But not quite all were entranced by Barnes' skillful prose.  Paul, always the contrarian, found the characters uniformly unlikable. His dissenting 5 failed to keep this gem of a novel from pulling down a very respectable 7.5 (an above average rating, especially for a Booker Prize winner).

John Goes Nuts

Acknowledgments
When we met in 2007 to discuss The Road, John was determined to make our meal memorable, if not palatable. On Tuesday, our meal was both. John evoked the castration scene at the beginning of The Power of the Dog by serving mountain oysters, overnighted from a cattle ranch in Arizona and deep fried with a choice of seasonings (and, for those still not satiated, they were also ground into beef for taco hors d'oeuvres). John then cleansed our palates with a spread that included iceberg salads, seared flank steaks, and a fine strawberry shortcake. As excellent as the main course was, John’s hospitality—much like Savage’s novel—was all about the opening act.

We should also acknowledge the character actors who appeared at our dinner. Paul, in a guest role, presented himself as John’s kin, a cameo he was ill-suited for given his thoughtfulness and intellect. George and Larry, both sporting chambray shirts, denim, and boots, failed to convince us they were the lawful successors to the Burbank ranch. And then there was Stan, flaunting flannel from Abba Dabba and Bitch and sharing ranching insights plagiarized from his Wyoming in-laws.

Finally, displaying a subtlety he is not normally known for, Garth arrived with a six-pack of Two Below, a pale ale from Ft. Collins. However, it wasn’t its taste (quite drinkable) or its provenance (home to those book-loving Great Apes) that captured our fancy; instead, we were impressed at Garth’s clever pairing of beer brand with beef part. From beers to balls to strawberries, our evening was a testicular success.

The Book
Set on a Montana ranch in 1924, The Power of the Dog explores the fraternal tensions between the wealthy Burbank brothers when one (the quiet, plodding George) marries and brings his wife and stepson to live at the ranch. Phil, the accomplished older brother, sets out to destroy the relationship and, in the end, is himself undone. As Garth noted, the opening castration scene is truly the story’s metaphor: the remainder of the novel depicts the end of a way of life, the destruction of longstanding family bonds, and an emerging feminine influence at the ranch.

The book’s most provocative issue (homosexuality) generated a heated discussion, with Stan taking plenty of arrows for his insistence that Annie Proulx, in typical fashion, misrepresented the main character’s sexual orientation. To the rest of us, Phil’s repressed homosexuality was evident, though not central to the plot. We were more interested in who the “dog” of the title referred to, which character deserved the label of hero, and the ranch life so bleakly described by Savage.

We agreed with Tom that this story was heavily character-driven, with Paul that change (and its absence) was a key theme, and with Doug that Phil’s character symbolized a disappearing legacy of the old West. Our few quibbles included Peter’s criticism of the old-fashioned dialog (it was rather cowpoke) and Garth’s claim that all of the characters would have benefited from a regimen of anti-depressants.

The most stimulating discussions aren’t always generated by the best books. In this case, our 7.3 rating—while good—failed to reflect just how engaged we were by this satisfying little novel. Thanks for an excellent recommendation, John.

Next Up

We had a list of fine choices from Peter, and ended up in a tie (7-7) between The Queen’s Gambit and In the Lake of the Woods. In our final round of voting, National Book Award Winner Tim O’Brien bested Nebula Award nominee Walter Tevis. And so we look forward to reading O’Brien’s purposely confusing, possibly fictionalized retrospective on the Vietnam Era.

Thanks to John and Next Book

Many thanks to John for hosting last night. I'm told that, in some book clubs, such a priority is placed on the food and drink that the actual book discussion is secondary. Fortunately, judging from last night's food service, we are in no danger of straying from our core mission. Cold and hungry, our bookmen somehow managed to choke out a few observations on this fascinating, if polarizing, novel by Cormac McCarthy.

For our next book, we have selected Oscar and Lucinda, by Peter Carey. My quick research reveals that this is a romance set in Australia , but is most definitely not Chick Lit (and therefore does not violate the Cardinal Rule of MBC). At 448 pages, I encourage everyone to start reading before July 10. Stan, if you need more time, take it from your day job and not from our company on July 10.

Peter will host our next meeting on July 10 at 7:00 pm. He has promised to serve us nothing canned or with its labels removed.

As a reminder to all, and to impose a little discipline on folks like Dean (Manchester United?!), come prepared with a book recommendation that meets our criteria (major award winner in the last 10 years, less than 500 pages, no chick lit). Go to http://www.powells.com/psection/Literature.html for a list and summaries of the different award winning books.