November 2015 Book Club "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter
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| Reminder of Pasquale's Coastal Village; pic taken on our trip to Italy, 2011 |
It was nice to
see so many of you at the November meeting at Barb K.’s! In attendance were Barb, of course, and
Cheryl, Ginnie, Lori, Becky, Sharon, Mandy, and myself. Eight in all! Barb’s home was a lovely venue
for a relaxing meeting as we had expected. She served us a scrumptious
pepperoni casserole, salad, and a yummy cake for dessert, mmmm good! It is always enjoyable to share beautifully
prepared food with good friends.
The November
meeting was extra special for another reason. As Cheryl lugged a huge box into
Barb’s home, we all wondered what in God’s good name she had inside it.
Mysteriously touting it as a “surprise,” we waited patiently for her to reveal
its contents. Finally, at the end of our meeting, she opened the box and inside
it were multiple hard-cover copies of Adriana Trigiani’s brand-new book All
the Stars in the Heavens! Cheryl presented each of us with a personally
signed edition from the author herself! Uh, ha, yes, the Butler Women of
Wisdom, us! We are so excited to begin reading Trigiani’s next story for our
January meeting. After reading Lucia, Lucia, Big Stone Gap, and The
Shoemaker’s Wife, all three of which we loved; it will be fun to see
how Trigiani spins another captivating tale with the Italian characters she has
become so famously known for including in all of her books. (Many of us in our
book club have a fondness for all things Italian!) So after leaving the Italian
port of Cinque Terre in our November book Beautiful
Ruins, we continue our Italian journey in All the Stars in the Heavens!
Recalling Beautiful
Ruins is like a maize. The
author Jess Walter had us hopping from character to character and from past to
present within the lives of those characters. The book was definitely a challenge for the
mind as it required staying active not only with various personalities and time
settings but also with multiple geographic locations. I can’t begin to remember all of the places
we traveled with Walter’s characters, but Italy and Hollywood were the hubs for
most of the action.
In Italy, Walter
places us in Rome where Hollywood is filming the great epic Cleopatra, starring Richard Burton and
Elizabeth Taylor. It makes for juicy reading when we are brought into Liz and
Dick’s passionate affair, but most importantly, Dick’s philandering with another
scrumptious beauty on the set, a young starlet named Dee Moray. Of course, Walters
writes a dark Italian hero, Pasquale Tursi, into her story to save Dee’s honor as
she meets with unfortunate circumstances resulting from her tryst with Dick.
Protected in a peaceful
Italian seaside village, we also learn of Pasquale’s own dark secret that weaves
another tale of heartache along with Dick and Dee’s. And yet, within Pasquale’s
story, we meet another character named Alvis Bender, an inebriated aspiring
writer/car salesman, whose life fatefully intertwines twice with Dee Moray’s, first
in Italy and later in the U.S.
Click forward in
time about 40 years to England and Pat, a dead head rock musician. As Pat
recalls his spoiled rotten and disturbing youth, we have no sympathy for his recent
bad breaks in the world of music. He is a user in more ways than one. It seems
a sad roll of fate when we learn how Pat and Dee share a history.
Still, on the
other side of the globe, Walters continues introducing us to more characters,
this time in Hollywood where Claire Silver, a young ambitious assistant to a film
producer, and her boss the great producer himself, Michael Deane, soon share in
Dick and Dee’s story. But before we even
begin to understand that connection, we must suffer the details of both Claire’s
and Michael’s lives first. And just when we thought Walters had reached a cap
on characters, she introduces Shane, a novice scriptwriter, whose story, let me
be candid, has very little to do with anything. Walters tries too hard to create characters,
but forgets that characters need developed. However, just when we cannot begin
to understand where Walters is leading us with her line-up of weak personalities,
the pieces fall together and a plot emerges.
All in all, Butler
Women of Wisdom liked the book Beautiful Ruins. It was fun to have
a sneak peek into the hidden world of Hollywood stars. We all remembered the
scandal caused by the Liz and Dick affair! The two occupied newspaper and
magazine headlines for years, and theirs was just one sordid story, out of thousands
that will never be disclosed. That’s why our next book All the Stars in the Heavens
is a delicious read. Trigiani creates a more realistic and beautifully written
story that uncovers some of old Hollywood’s buried secrets. Through the character of the famous Hollywood
film star Loretta Young, we meet Hollywood’s most endearing stars of all times.
I can’t wait to discuss this book with all of you, it is sure to be another
Trigiani bestseller! I loved it!
Please join us at
Natilie’s Pizzeria on Thursday, January 28, at 6 PM, for our next engaging meeting. Let’s make it Hollywood night! I so enjoyed
researching more on the film stars mentioned in Trigiani’s book, so why not do
some homework? If each of us gathers some trivia on a favorite old film star
from the 1930 era, we can all try and guess who it is! Bring a picture of them,
too (phone pics allowed). Looking forward to seeing you all on Thursday!
Yours in reading,
Tammy
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