~ FIRST TUESDAY BOOK CLUB - SELECTED DISCUSSION NOTES ~

TEMPLE OF MUSIC (Jonathan Lowy) - March, 2008
From Publishers Weekly Lowy's second novel (after Elvis and Nixon) is a scattered but compelling account of the assassination of William McKinley at the hands of Leon Czolgosz at the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. Czolgosz is an enigmatic figure, and Lowy does a good job of filling in the blanks with a failed love affair and moments of anguished alienation that explain in realistically messy terms why a man would commit such an extreme act. Lowy occasionally engages in commentary that pushes beyond its usefulness as stage-setting—as in his distracting protest against the turn-of-the-century marriage of big business and politics—and he sometimes succumbs to pontification when encapsulating the era's clash of revolutionaries and robber barons. He makes up for this, however, in his colorful pictures of the era's giants: robust McKinley and his frail, haunted wife, Ida; megalomaniac newspaper magnate Hearst; eccentric socialite/condom peddler Morris Vandeveer; anarchist icon Emma Goldman; and McKinley's handler, "Dollar" Mark Hanna, gigolo father of the modern political campaign. In the end, the novel stays true to the mission of good historical fiction, which is to dispel the textbook notion of iconic events as either planned or inevitable. Czolgosz and McKinley are real people in Lowy's hands, motivated as much by love and fear as politics or ideology, and often confused as they unwittingly write the pages of American history. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Like SEX WARS, this historical novel was set during the gilded age. In general, the group enjoyed the novel, which we agreed was well-researched and an enjoyable alternative to a dry history textbook. We did find the author's technique of flipping between characters and time periods to be disconcerting. The focus of Lowy's novel is on the presidential campaign of William McKinley and how it was shaped and influenced by both the economic times and his personal life. The Republican viewpoints on wealth and power (the trickle down theory of the Reagan era) have remaind surprisingly intact over the last 130 years! All in all, this book was a worthwhile read and we would recommend it.

SEX WARS (Marge Piercy) - July, 2007
(From Publishers Weekly) Starred Review. This rich novel set in post–Civil War New York stars a true-life cast of characters that includes Victoria Woodhull, the spiritualist turned first woman to run for the U.S. presidency; passionate suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton; the aged Cornelius Vanderbilt, who sits atop a $100-million fortune as he tries to make contact with his dead son; and Anthony Comstock, a crusading moralist who dedicates his life to outlawing pornography and "obscene objects made of rubber." As they each vie for different kinds of sex-based power, the consequences of their actions echo from the halls of Congress to Manhattan's back alleys. Piercy (Gone to Soldiers) powerfully dramatizes the early feminists' zeal and the high stakes of the gender wars it set in motion, and offers a wealth of period detail, including tips on using an outdoor latrine when living in a fifth-floor walk-up and the cost to bathe (fully dressed, no soap) in the East River. Most poignant among the invented characters is Freydeh Leibowitz, a young Russian-Jewish widow, who, far from the scandalous headlines and saloon gossip of the times, makes a living for herself and her adopted children, penny by penny, as a manufacturer of reliable condoms. Stylistically, the narration and dialogue don't wow, but the people, their ways of living and the ways they are marked by sex certainly do. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This selection generated some interesting discussion on women's rights, historical fiction vs. narrative nonfiction, abortion and birth control, and immigration. It is not surprising that Marge Piercy would choose to write a novel about feminism, suffragettes, and free love, since she herself has played an active role in the modern women's movement. Her marriages in some ways strangely paralleled Victoria Woodhull's, which could be a factor in her choice of "characters." That word leads to one of our points of discussion, the fact that 3 of the four "points of view" in the novel were actual historical figures. Their roles were not by any means peripheral. Only one of the main characters in the book, Freydah, was fictional, so would the book be considered "historical fiction" or "narrative nonfiction"? Victoria Woodhull, Anthony Comstock, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry Ward Beecher, and Susan B. Anthony, all major characters, are all known historical figures. The publisher states clearly that the stories in the book are fictional, but where does reality leave off and fiction begin? Everyone in our group was fascinated by the womanizing reputation of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and by Anthony Comstock's interest in all things "pornographic". Overall, we enjoyed this novel, especially the sections about Freydah, the Jewish widow who built her own condom business and raised 3 street urchins as her own. We liked and admired her as a character. We were, for the most part, shocked by the level of subjugation of women in the 19th century. We would recommend this book and this author to others.

MARCH (Geraldine Brooks) - June, 2007
(From Publishers Weekly) Starred Review. Brooks's luminous second novel, after 2001's acclaimed Year of Wonders, imagines the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. An idealistic Concord cleric, March becomes a Union chaplain and later finds himself assigned to be a teacher on a cotton plantation that employs freed slaves, or "contraband." His narrative begins with cheerful letters home, but March gradually reveals to the reader what he does not to his family: the cruelty and racism of Northern and Southern soldiers, the violence and suffering he is powerless to prevent and his reunion with Grace, a beautiful, educated slave whom he met years earlier as a Connecticut peddler to the plantations. In between, we learn of March's earlier life: his whirlwind courtship of quick-tempered Marmee, his friendship with Emerson and Thoreau and the surprising cause of his family's genteel poverty. When a Confederate attack on the contraband farm lands March in a Washington hospital, sick with fever and guilt, the first-person narrative switches to Marmee, who describes a different version of the years past and an agonized reaction to the truth she uncovers about her husband's life. Brooks, who based the character of March on Alcott's transcendentalist father, Bronson, relies heavily on primary sources for both the Concord and wartime scenes; her characters speak with a convincing 19th-century formality, yet the narrative is always accessible. Through the shattered dreamer March, the passion and rage of Marmee and a host of achingly human minor characters, Brooks's affecting, beautifully written novel drives home the intimate horrors and ironies of the Civil War and the difficulty of living honestly with the knowledge of human suffering. ~Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
The major points touched upon during this lively discussion were March's character and his relationship with Grace. Many in the group felt that March was a "weak" person, not likeable at all, to the detriment of the novel. At least one member felt that March was not at all weak, but an idealistic visionary intent on helping to create a better world for all creatures. Grace was the favorite character, strong, self-reliant, and giving. The group could not determine the book's "value" in comparison to works such as "Andersonville" because "March" did not adequately show the horrors of the Civil War. Perhaps, though, the focus of the book was meant to be the inward battles of the man, March, in reaction to the life choices necessitated (at least in his mind) by the war, rather than the war itself. Group members who had read Brooks' earlier novel, "year of Winders", felt that "March" was inferior.
Overall the book was given a grade of C-. On the plus side, the interweaving of the characters from "Little Women" into this novel was enjoyable, as was the use of actual historical figures (Thoreau, Emerson). As a work of historical fiction the novel was thought provoking, but many felt that the main character detracted from their enjoyment of the story.

MY ANTONIA (Willa Cather) - January, 2005
(from Amazon.com) First published in 1918, and set in Nebraska in the late 19th century, this tale of the spirited daughter of a Bohemian immigrant family planning to farm on the untamed land ("not a country at all but the material out of which countries are made") comes to us through the romantic eyes of Jim Burden.
Willa Cather's writing is beautiful! The loneliness of Nebraska is well-portrayed in this work, which is an excellent study of immigrants and their ability to survive the hardships of adjusting to a new country. This work is characterized by good, strong story-telling and well-portrayed emotions.

COLONY (Anne Rivers Siddons) - September, 2004
(From Audiofile) A young Southern woman marries into an aristocratic Boston family and spends her summers at a vacation community on the Maine coast.
The group had very mixed feelings on this melodramatic book. Some felt that there were many language and sequence errors in the writing that detracted from the flow of the story. Comments included "overly long" and "poorly structured". On the other hand, some participants decribed Siddons' story as a "good read" that was both thought-provoking and a good choice for discussion, especially in terms of the time span, from the 1920's through the 1990's. The consensus was that the real central "character" of the book was not Maude or any of the individuals portrayed, but rather the colony itself.

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