Snowy days and frigid temperatures are the perfect combination for curling up and reading a good book. Making the best of our recent weather conditions, I just finished two books that should make great book club selections. Both deal with a similar topic: alcoholism. Although they approach the topic from a different perspective, there are some parallels in the way the main characters handle the issue. Each book can stand alone as a great discussion book.
Blame by Michelle Huneven appeared on a few of last year’s ‘best of 2009’ fiction lists. It is the story of a young college professor who, while driving home after an evening of drinking and partying, killed two women. Patsy MacLemoore will spend the next twenty years dealing with the consequences of her actions in this artfully written novel about guilt, atonement and ultimately forgiveness. Alcoholism and sobriety have played a part in both of Ms. Huneven‘s previous novels, Round Rock and Jamesland. She is herself a recovering alcoholic and through her books has given us a first hand look at Alcoholics Anonymous and the pros and cons of such an organization.
There are many notable literary memoirs that have been written about alcoholism. Pete Hamill describes his years of drinking in A Drinking Life, and journalist Caroline Knapp details her love affair with alcohol in Drinking: a love story. But Mary Karr, poet and literature professor at Syracuse University has written a memoir that you will find hard to resist.
Lit appeared on several of last year’s best nonfiction lists. Ms. Karr has written two earlier memoirs, The Liars Club and Cherry which focused on her early years in Texas and her adolescence. Lit is about marriage, motherhood and her battle with alcohol. Karr relates the story of her ‘nervous breakthrough’ as she calls it, and about all the help she had along the way. As she struggles to get sober and after years as an agnostic, she embraces Catholicism. It’s a powerful story, dark at times, but also filled with self deprecating humor. Karr is a master storyteller with a beautiful writing style.
Both Blame and Lit are about coming to terms with our past and our present, about finding one’s self and surviving. There’s lots of discussion material here and I highly recommend them for book clubs looking for a female’s perspective on this troubling topic.
