April and May 2017 Book Clubs "Maude" by Donna Foley Mabry and "The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry" by Gabrielle Zevin

Greetings Book Club Members!

     Tonight, June 22, at 6 PM, we have planned to meet at Natilie's Pizzeria for our next Women of Wisdom Book Club discussion. Hopefully, despite the weather we will draw enough members to share thoughts on the title The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood.

     Our April and May meetings were both well attended. In April, we met at Natilie’s Pizzeria. We welcomed Becky back to the fold, our migratory member. Barb D., Ginnie, Sharon, Lori, Cheryl, Jody (back from God knows where), and I were also in attendance to discuss Maude by Donna Foley Mabry, my book choice.  For the May meeting held at Anna Marie’s Winery and Café, Becky, Barb D., Barb K., Cheryl, Ginnie, Lori, Sharon, Mary Beth, and I were present to discuss The Storied Life of A.J. Fikrey, Barb D.’s pick. It was a long time - no see - Mary Beth, our entrepreneurial member, so we were also pleased that she could pencil us into her calendar!

     First, what can I say about Maude. In Mabry’s biographical tale, her grandmother is a hell of a woman. Talk about steadfast, hardworking, and utterly obedient to God’s will almost to the point of idiocracy! Maude was a slave to everyone in her life, basically. She was first a slave to her mother, then to her sister, then to her first husband, his parents, her no- good-for-nothing second husband (for sure), her psycho mother-in-law, and her rotten and some not so rotten children. Wow! You can even say she was a slave to her church, Holiness, as she did not believe she had the freedom to make her own decisions based on her own intelligence and intuitive sense. She married the lazy bum George just because she feared exile from her congregation. The book feeds the reader a mix of Maude’s small successes torn to pieces by heartbreaking tragedies. It is the story of a life.  Maude’s life was long, hard, and painful (ala the description of George’s member), with all too brief moments of elation. Maude lived the loss of the children she loved and was burdened with the children who gave her the most grief. She knew marital intimacy only briefly but a lifetime of marital indifference. From beginning to end, we clung to the hope that Maude would overcome her dismal destiny. She didn’t. “I think now God gives each one of us a measure of happiness for our lives, and some are allowed more than others.” That about sums up the story of Maude.

     Now to The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. This novel rises from the start when a book store owner named Fikry, depressed and suicidal, is gifted with a toddler left behind by her desperate mother. His cynical, sad life is saved by the child and chapter by chapter like in Maude, the reader is given for perusal a chronological biography of Fikry’s ordinary, however, quirky life in the business and heart of books. Because of the child, Maya, Fikry’s character learns to love again. Maya, opens his heart to the possibilities of his future. Fikry marries Amelia, a book marketer, and in her finds the perfect mate for debating his snarky opinions on books. At the end, a second climax occurs when Fikry must confront his lifetime affliction of blackouts; he is diagnosed with brain cancer. The problem of funding his surgery is quickly resolved when a first edition novel by E. A. Poe that was stolen from Fikry many years before is so opportunely found. The surgery only buys us a few more pages with our main character, a quick denouement.

     Within the pages of Fikry’s storied life, we learn of the great books that we should all read, and how to distinguish a good one from a bad one, at least from Fikry’s point of view. As the action falls, though, when Fikry is dying from the brain he valued in life, he becomes very philosophical, losing all his former pettiness. He reminds those he loves and the reader that “In the end, we are all just collected works” and “there are no collections where each story is perfect. Some hits. Some misses.” Ironically, as Fikry’s brain fades, his insights have an urgency. He wells with emotion and struggles through his incapacity to think to explain to Maya what life is really all about. “Maya, we are what we love. We are that we love…We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read,” Fikry presses, “We are for as long as we are here, only love.” In conclusion, Fikry delivers. The message: Not many of us will be holding on to a book on our last day, but hopefully, we will be holding on to the hand of someone we love, and that love will be everything and enough.

Your friend in reading,

Tammy