The Shadows

Friday night my book club discussed Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Shadow in the Wind.

Imagine belonging to the same book club for decades? Did we know at the first meeting of our eventual longevity? Certainly changes happened, either through happenstance, chance or studied willingness to try it a different way.

For years we only read books by women. Fewer publishers took chances on female writers—women still win fewer of the big literary prizes. We supported women writers and believed that the personal is political.

The faces changed. The original members—or members of a decade or more —now number seven. At our zenith twenty-five people showed up the fourth Friday of every month, now thirteen to seventeen show up the third Friday of the month—a more manageable number.

We always adhere to a discussion of the book. No veering off into private stories. The book doesn't act as a trigger to our personal reveries.
Last night Mary Ellen asked about Magic Realism and I thought about Karen; Karen who loved writers from South America, who studied those writers and wrote her thesis on the connecting links of land and religion and magic realism; Karen who died of breast cancer way too young. Karen who wanted to be buried back in the farmland of the mid-west, a land she loved.

Shadows—I perceived the shadows of the past in the room. Another Karen sought a spiritual path, one not found in the books we read. One day she packed her things, sold her house and became a Sufi.

Zafon said that he wrote his book as an ode to reading.

And Alberto Manquel wrote: "Perhaps in order for a book to attract us, it must establish between our experience and that of the fiction--between the two imaginations, ours and that on the page--a link of coincidence."

The Shadow in the Wind connected me to the shadows of those who once belonged to the book club.

We had a member who arrived barefoot in the winter. She walked on ice. "My feet smell in shoes."

A woman came who taught literature at a nearby university and remained a member until she led a discussion on Withering Heights, a book she wrote about in her own book. We disagreed with her interpretation and she left.

I recall the short women who only came a few times and suggested rather pallid books. Because she was new and spoke so energetically about a book she suggested, we voted it for the following month. At that point we chose a book for the next month; now we choose three books at a time.

The following month we tore apart the book—weak character development, sappy ending, and purple prose.

"Did you read this book before suggesting it?" I asked. “ A rule of thumb—read the book first.”

"No." she answered. Two people self-righteously took her to task for not following that rule —the eleventh commandment.


Maybe she came back once again and then didn't appear again. We learned she had died, was dying the evening we ripped into the book with a good ending and weak prose.

I think of her whenever I want to lean with words—anything can be said if the words aren't used to pummel.

Joyce suggested we interview each other for the newsletter. Everyone had a chance to play both roles. Joyce died several years ago—cancer. She wanted to live long enough to finish a children's book—she did.

Once someone brought a woman to the group who regaled us with her tales of time spent in jail.

We listened to one gynecologist member tell us of her decision to become a pastry chief.

One member lived in the shell of a dilapidated building. “It’s better, “ she said, “then living in my car.” She always sat closet to the cheese and crackers. One Friday she didn’t show up.

We need reunions—