I started a book club and we don’t read books. We love novels – we are novelists, as well as nonfiction writers, academics and editors; voracious readers, all. But we’ve dragged ourselves through enough boozy, emotional “I hated it/I didn’t read it/well, I loved it” book clubs to run screaming.
Now we gather at a hippy pub clutching a slim volume or tapping on a link. One published short story, one hour, once a month (or so). Arrive, order chips and beer, rip through the story, done. Raymond Carver said of the form: “Get in, get out. Don’t linger. Go on.” We’re sprinters. And after each session I feel buzzed, already looking forward to the next race.
I have tried to take part in the rite of passage that is a proper book group. The first one I went to was more about wedding planning than literature. The book was The Time Traveler’s Wife. The cake was to be chocolate. Finger food and, after much discussion, a hired photographer. There was no book discussion and no invitation to this “wedding”.
I have also been the unwitting “author guest” enough times to know that one very drunk person will hate my book between mouthfuls of cheese (what is it with the cheese?). The other drunk person won’t have read it but will want to know how much I earn. I don’t mind people questioning my writing or finances but do it online or in print or behind my back, for goodness sake, like Normal People (great book).
I consume novels. They are far better than cheese. They’re not really a form suited to group discussion. Reading a novel is a personal journey that often comes down to taste due to the sheer investment of 10-plus hours. Talking about it becomes general, like commenting on the world.
Or the climate crisis.
“What did you think of the world?”
“Oh, big! Messed up! Not sure about that ending.”
People should gather, especially over art, and mull over it while really checking in on each other. A short story club, I proclaim every time we meet, is a more focused event. Short fiction is made to be shared! A crafty, clever piece of writing that celebrates language, provokes questions and fosters the collective joy of tearing something apart with others and still getting home in time for tea.
Or so I thought.
I arrive at the pub with my trusty copy of Lucia Berlin’s A Manual for Cleaning Women containing my story pick for the month, Tiger Bites. It’s a gritty piece about two cousins on an abortion mission in a convertible from 1950s Texas to Mexico. Much to discuss.
The stalwarts of the Not Book Club, Kris and Anthony, are already nursing beers, having just driven eight hours – they are that dedicated. Next arrives short story diehard Fiona. I can just feel our razor focus building. Our illustrious new member, Carody, joins us for the first time. A spate of last-minute apologies from others. And we start. But we don’t.
Apparently, we’re taking Alice Munro’s advice tonight, that if “a story wants to go in a particular direction, I let that happen. I just put it out there and see what it does.” Our conversation meanders from the personal to the movie adapted. Occasionally we return to Berlin’s character, Bella Lynn, and her laugh “that caught the joy, implied and mocked the sorrow in every joy” and why this story about women ends on men (patriarchy, is our conclusion). Mostly we talk about our families.
“Isn’t there anything to say about the story?” I ask eventually. I’m enjoying hearing about the families.
“They’re consumed by their own shit.”
“Like my family!”
“It’s more memoir.”
“Outlandish realism.”
“Or that bitchy thing James Wood said about Zadie Smith: hysterical realism.”
We agree that White Teeth is excellent and that wasn’t very nice, James Wood. Smith says of the short form: “You become a different writer when you approach a short story. When things are not always having to represent other things, you find real human beings begin to cautiously appear on your page.”
At this point in the night, I’m cautiously rethinking my stance on book clubs. We’ve strayed so far from Berlin’s brilliance that I close her book. Booker shortlistee Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung comes up. Kris explains how the talking poo story really works. We’re going to do a JG Ballard next, something from Tony Birch’s Dark as Last Night, and maybe a Chung. Kris nods sagely: “We’ll float the poo story with the group.”
I emerge from the pub exhausted, loved up and with no new insights. A familiar feeling. Book club! Apparently even short fiction readers need to use the text as a coaster. To walk the race with other friendly nerds, pretending to talk about fiction. It doesn’t need to be a novel though.
Sometimes the best conversations, and the best stories, are short.
• Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country and Holiday in Cambodia. Her latest short story collection is Gunflower (Scribe, $29.99)
