RWB Book Club:
Sunday, June 14, 4 p.m. in the lobby at Pickford Theatre
The Red Wheelbarrow Writers Book Club theme choice for June is, not surprisingly, Fathers. For June we’ve added a petite caveat: no one can choose Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch is the most sterling father in American literature, the father everyone wanted to have. We might as well subtitle our June choice: Beyond Atticus.
Our themes can be genres as well. If you would like to have a writerly discussion on memoir, sci fi, time travel, travel-travel, YA, fantasy, graphic novels and other genres, join us on June 14th [check date] at 4 at the Pickford and make a suggestion for July.
For our May discussion of Mothers, naturally, Mommy Dearest made an appearance among other titles. Mostly the fictional mothers we noted were either comic, symbolic or nasty unto evil. One reader chose books like Jane Eyre where girls who were motherless made their way in the world as successful, if challenged adults. As a group we marveled at the paucity of novels with good mothers. The only one I could think of was Lucia Santa from The Fortunate Pilgrim, Mario Puzo’s first novel. There’s the mother in Little Women, I suppose, a model of loving decorum. One reader brought the children’s book, Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree in which the maternal tree yields up its everything to and for the demanding child. Is that the good mother?
Atticus Finch aside, are fictional fathers portrayed differently? Think on it, and join us for a lively discussion Sunday June 14th at the Pickford.
Below are some of the titles offered up for the Mothers Theme
Grapes of Wrath
Scarlet Letter
Nicholas Nickleby
The Fortunate Pilgrim (Mario Puzo’s first novel)
Bleak House
Jane Eyre
The Giving Tree
