An Apologia

[Reader's Note:  The NYT gave you a small glimpse of the Man Book Club.  Please read below for the rest.  Spoiler Alert:  We do read books by women.]

The New York Times Interviews
 Man Book Club

Our Interview with The New York Times

When we were approached by The New York Times, we were flattered but never expected to end up in print.  Nevertheless, we gave a phone interview and provided additional information by email.  When the article came out on May 4, we were dismayed that so little of what we prize about our close-knit group was mentioned or explained. 

The Article's Angle

The Times article opened with our name (manifestly masculine), our location (an affluent county), and our experience eating Rocky Mountain Oysters (aka, calves’ testicles).  These details provided the hook for anyone mildly curious about all-male book clubs.

After such a lead-in, most feature articles would step back and provide context, the very context we’d provided during our interview.  But this wasn’t a feature article; it was a “trend piece.”  And, as in all trend pieces, provocation is better than explanation.

I don’t blame the writer.  This was her assignment and nothing she wrote was incorrect.  But, by omission, the details and quotes in her piece implied that our book club has zero regard for women's contributions to literature.   Nothing could be further from the truth.

A Critical Reaction

While most pundits had fun with the machismo story line, and understood that we and the other book clubs in the article weren't seeking to be taken seriously, there were some who averred that we were shockingly narrow-minded in our book selection criteria and that as rich white men we were modeling abhorrent behavior. One writer even said book clubs like ours perpetuate “the patriarchy’s continued dominance.” 

To address these concerns, a little explanation is in order. 

Why “Man Book Club”

“Man Book Club” was intended as a riff on the "Man Booker Prize," in addition to acknowledging our all-male composition.  It referred to our original selection criterion, which mandated shortlisted or award-winning authors only.  Like Booker Prize winners, for example.  Except the Booker Prize became the Man Booker Prize when it was "bought" by the Man Financial Group (a UK hedge fund).  So our name was a jab at Man’s cynical entry into the rarefied world of literary awards.

Who We Really Are

Residents of Marin County?  Yes.  Rich?  No.  We all have to work, unfortunately.  All white?  Another no. Anyone who reads our website can see that our so-called "patriarchy" includes men of Mexican, Japanese, and Filipino descent. 

Why We Came Together

We came together for two reasons:  a desire to form a men’s group and a concomitant desire to read.  In 2007, all of us had young kids and our lives were going nonstop. We were busy doing lots of things.  But we weren’t reading.  Half of us had stopped after college; the other half only read intermittently.  Amid all this action (and inaction), we were also seeking more contemplative fellowship with other men.

Learning from Women’s Book Clubs

When we formed our book club, an online search indicated that the vast majority of book clubs were women-only.  Many of these clubs read widely, but others were quite specific:  there were book clubs that read only gothic romance, fantasy, young adult, Jane Austen (yes, only Jane Austen) or other subgenres.  This gave us an idea for our book club:  we would focus on male-themed literature.  Call it our Jane Austen approach to reading.

Our Book Selection Criteria

Our longstanding rule—“No books by women about women”—has apparently caused the most consternation among our critics.  And confusion.  Virtually every critic read our rule as forbidding any books by women. Or any books about women.  Neither is true.  We read books by women and we read books about women.  Confusion over our rule led one critic to claim--incorrectly--that our criteria would exclude Anna Karenina.

Our rule helps us avoid overtly feminine titles that may not appeal to the entire group of us.  It’s a way to rule out Eat, Pray, Love, but rule in Unbroken.  And Anna Karenina.  It’s not perfect and in fact we’ve strayed from it, like when we read Patti Smith's memoir, Just Kids. 
 

A final and obvious note about our reading.  Once a month we gather to eat and discuss a book that usually emphasizes male themes.  The rest of the month we can and do read anything.  And that includes women's fiction.  

In Conclusion…

We are a group of middle-aged men who have re-discovered the joy of reading after a long hiatus.  Our efforts to read should be encouraged, even if our material isn't as eclectic as some would like.

Slate got it right when it called out the Times and others for grossly distorting the import of our book club.  Its headline read:  “Feminists Shouldn’t Roll Our Eyes at Men-Only Book Clubs. We Should Applaud Them.”

Thank you, Slate.  We couldn’t have said it better.

Dinner at the Orphanage with Larry

Acknowledgments
If Larry's intent last Tuesday was to serve us something that approximated--in tone or taste--the cuisine of Adam Johnson's North Korea, he did a terrible job.  There was no fresh bird's breast, no toxic peaches, no purloined shrimp, and thankfully no ox secretions.  Larry instead took us south of the 38th parallel so we could feast guilt-free on bulgogi, salmon, rice, kimchi (homemade), and mochi (also homemade).  Well-nourished, and with guest Stuart at our table, we looked across the DMZ and wondered about the strange world that inspired The Orphan Master's Son.

(A special acknowledgment is owed to Tom and Dean, who transported Stan and his new wheelchair to Larry's and back.  Stan's recent motorcycle accident in Mexico and his return odyssey--10 hours to the border in the back of a pickup, and another 9 to the hospital in S.F.!--are quite the story.  Stan, we wish you a fast recovery.)

The Book
Johnson's 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is, on its surface, the story of an Everyman character (named Jun Do) who while navigating the absurdity of modern-day North Korea becomes a symbol of its extremes.  Born to an orphan master, raised among orphans, and later working variously as a kidnapper and an intelligence officer, Jun Do's early years are full of the contradictions of North Korean society.  Johnson ups the ante in Part 2 of the book when the reader realizes that the Commander Ga character from Part 1 has disappeared and Jun Do has assumed his identity.  No longer Everyman, Jun Do's real identity is open to question (literally, as his interrogation spans all of Part 2).

Our positive rating (7.6) belied the mutterings of some (Roy and Dan, I'm talking about you), whose forward progress suffered during the book's transition to Part 2.  With its confusing character changes and relentlessly shifting point of view (back and forth from a literarily omniscient third person to a politically omniscient second person--speaking from a state loudspeaker--to the first person Interrogator posing as our protagonist), not everyone was impressed by Johnson's virtuosity.  Nor was everyone satisfied by the novel's fanciful detour to Texas and that state's later role in the story's climax.

We were all, however, entranced by the many sordid DPRK details extracted (or manufactured) by Johnson.   Replete with gulags, prison mines, foreign kidnappings, widespread hunger, self-criticism sessions, and several Potemkin-style communist paradoxes (e.g., the handmade vintage Mustang using a Lada chassis and Mercedes engine!), Johnson's imagination soars.   Yes, the story is dark (Dean), dystopian (Larry), and surreal (Peter), the narrative saunters (Stan), the "truthiness" quotient is high (thanks for that Colbert reference, Glenn), and there's more than a little misogyny (duly noted by Paul), but many of us thought Johnson did a superb job in grappling with our often conflicting notions of truth, identity, and the nature of power and relationships.  As Doug also noted, Johnson beautifully fictionalizes a society whose reality is already stranger than fiction.   For Terry and me and a couple others, The Orphan Master's Son landed at or near the top of the MBC booklist. 

Next Up
Peter challenged us with his offerings for next month.  With two (!) titles about racism and a failed criminal justice system, another about disease and mortality, and a fourth about Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, we shuddered and instead picked Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist.  A novel centered around the WTO protests in Seattle, YHMSF has landed on many recent Best Picks lists.  We'll see if it makes ours.

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.

Dean Delivers, Mongolian Style

Acknowledgments
Tuesday's dinner was an impressive act of culinary celerity.  Dean rushed back from a father-son ski trip at Kirkwood to research and prepare an all-Mongol feast. (Meaning the food, not the guests--or not all of them anyway.)  With Mongolian beef and scallions accompanied by buuz (those delicious steamed dumplings) and a Mongolian carrot salad, Dean met his own--and our--high standards.  The Tsingtao beer and San Marino Cellars washed it all down nicely.

The only false note, Dean, was the pure butter shortbread in your yogurt dessert.  Unlike the rest of your menu, it wasn't home-made and its provenance was disturbing.  (Did I see a Walker's box in the trash? You know Genghis never made it past Gaul!)

The Book
Jack Weatherford's history of Genghis Khan makes a bold claim:  that as Khan and his progeny advanced westward, and established their dominion throughout the Caucasus, the Middle East, and into central Europe, their ideas and technology helped produce the Age of Enlightenment.  Who knew that this barbarian on horseback had such a civilizing effect?

We didn't, and so we questioned Weatherford's thesis and wondered if his research was as rigorous as it purported to be.  (His constant references to the so-called Secret History and his refusal to footnote any of his conclusions didn't inspire confidence.)  Our most reliable cynic--who shall go unnamed--offered an alternate sub-title:  "...and the Great Mongolian Blow Job."

Cynicism aside, we were treated to a litany of fun facts by Weatherford.  The Mongols were the first all-cavalry warriors and their speed accounted for much of their success.  They were the first to use gunpowder and shrapnel-laden projectiles in war.  They invented paper currency and standardized monetary units of measurement throughout their empire. They institutionalized diplomatic immunity, eschewed torture, guaranteed freedom of religion, created a professional class of administrators, and offered advancement based on merit not family. Among those they conquered, they decapitated the aristocracy and created new democratic structures loosely modeled after their khuriltai.  They invaded and united China, laid out modern Beijing, and built the Forbidden City.  Whew! But, as Larry notes with ethnic pride, they never conquered Japan.  (Editor's own ethnic observation:  nor did they take the Philippines, leaving that task for Larry's ancestors some 500 years later.)

Weatherford posits that the Mongolian empire was brought down by the lowly Chinese rat and its rapid transmission of the bubonic plague.  Wait, what?  Oh, who cares.  A fascinating story--albeit one laced with repetitive details and dubious scholarship--prompted us to give Weatherford a decent 6.5.

Next Up
John hosts us in March and, in light of his mother's recent diagnosis, asked us to select from several titles about the very difficult subject of death and dying.  We picked Atul Gawande's Being Mortal.  Until our next meeting, we'll continue to keep John's family in our thoughts. 

2015 Redux

Redux notwithstanding, I'll start with our early January 2016 ski trip.  The point is, after years of terrible conditions, we finally had enough snow for good skiing.  A day at Sugar Bowl and, for some, a day of cross-country at Royal Gorge, were appropriately exhausting.  They were also necessary, as they provided the spacing between Tom's lasagna, Peter's ribs, Dean's chicken piccata, and endless bottles of wine. Below, we tuck into that famous lasagna....

(L to R: Moguls, Aussie, Crash, Steeps, Hydro, 2XC4US)

Apologies to "Crash," who finally made our ski weekend only to have his wife's beautiful red SUV scarred by an errant (but honest) snowplow driver.

Our ski trip was only slightly consumed with reading.  We had a too-abbreviated conversation about Jess Walter's The Financial Lives of the Poets.  Proposed by Terry, and inspired in part by our appreciation of Walter's short story, Anything Helps, Walter's novel about one man's midlife travails was a comic if bittersweet glance back at the Great Recession.  His protagonist felt a little too like any of us:  middle-aged man (check), with kids (check), and beautiful wife whose fidelity is suspect (hmm...not going there), making bad decisions (sometimes), aware of those bad decisions (always), and with an epiphany at the end (time will tell).  We truncated our discussion to avoid spoiling it for those who hadn't yet finished.  But the consensus seemed to be one of great ambivalence.  Sort of funny, sort of painful, sort of true, sort of compelling.  An emailed rating later of 7.0 was surprisingly good for all the sort ofs.

In December, after a 6-year hiatus, we reprised our progressive holiday party. As before, we started at Larry's for appetizers (thank you for the fried lumpia, Larry!), had our entrees and sides at yours truly, and finished with dessert, mulled wine, and more at Terry's.  As usual, every man did more than he was asked to pull off this moving feast for 35 guests.  Special thanks to Tom (two days spent preparing Julia Child's boeuf bourgignon!), Peter (who, too sick to attend, still dropped off his slow-cooked ribs), and John (whose flourless chocolate cake was to die for, but who also sent each of us home with an individually-wrapped persimmon loaf from his kitchen). 

We traveled up to Petaluma in November for a midday meal with Glenn.  Ostensibly, we were there to discuss Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but most of us were happy touring Glenn's new/old house and listening to his plans for the barn (built, we were told, before Conrad penned his magnum opus).  Since he had no recipes from the Congo, and since Belgian food is French food ruined, Glenn turned to Apocalypse Now for inspiration and prepared an excellent dejeuner Indochine. With guest Rob contributing, we shared our thoughts on Marlow's tale of his quest for Mr. Kurtz. Despite the fact that everything has already been said about this story (most of it by college freshmen), our discussion was lively. Was the journey simply one long acid trip (Rob, speaking metaphorically, I think), intentionally purposeless (Terry), exploring darkness in the map's white spaces (Glenn), an indictment of corporatism (or was that mercantilism, Paul?), or just a vehicle for terrific writing (most of us)?  Regardless, our own quest to find Glenn up in Sonoma County left us amply (ful)filled. Enough so that, for the second month running, we lifted a title into our current top five, with an 8.4 rating.

In October, we repaired to Dan's for dinner al fresco and an opportunity to discuss one of the more original works we've read to date.  Violating our selection protocol by offering us only one title, Dan had us read Christopher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal.  The title was incongruous, but the book managed to capture our collective fancy.  Whimsical, comic, irreverent--none of these does justice to Moore's re-creation of the Christ story with Biff as his cartoonish narrator.  Like Aslan's Zealot, Moore's Lamb acknowledges that so little is known about Christ's upbringing.  But in Moore's telling, absolutely anything is fair game.  Our comments ranged from "sophomoric" (Doug) and "juvenile" (me) to "refreshing" (Peter) and "meaningful" (Tom).  Quibbles aside, almost everyone found Moore funny and highly creative.  And that, to my surprise, propelled Dan's solo title into our current top five with an 8.7.  Creativity was also to be found on our vino, courtesy of San Marino Cellars' Label Division:
 

Dan and his Disciples

 (P.S.:  Dan, your Jerusalem-inspired meal of lamb and chicken shawarma more than compensated for your rules violation.  But don't tell anyone I said that. Otherwise, I'll let the world know that your own guest, Miguel, confessed that while Lamb may have been funny, it had "no depth.")

We convened in September wondering what Paul had in store for us.  In fairness, we'd been warned that our book's title should be taken literally.  And it was.  Paul's dinner dropped us right into the onion field described by Joseph Wambaugh. Seated outside and in the dark, we all took notice of the table's centerpiece, which was an artful arrangement of planted onion bulbs.  To make sure we got the point, each part of our meal featured onions, starting with an onion dip, then onion soup, and continuing with a delicious onion quiche.  The food unfortunately outdid the book.  Perhaps we were spoiled by Truman Capote, but everything about Wambaugh's true crime account suffered in comparison to In Cold Blood.  Most disappointing was the writing.  Plodding and tedious, the book's best moment was the actual homicide in the onion field north of Los Angeles.  While we all decried the writing, Larry further complained that the story had no protagonist worth caring about.  Indeed, had we cared more, we might not have been content to rate The Onion Field a 5.5.