 Drama: September 14, 2022 Issue [#11551] |
This week: Book-Club Books and Drama Edited by: Joy  
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“Suffering confers no privileges; it is what one does with suffering that matters.”
Elie Wiesel, Night
“Sometimes when I’m careless, I believe the wound is also the place where the skin reencounters itself, asking of each end, where have you been?
Where have you been, Ma?”
Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
“The next thing I knew, I was falling. I dreamed I was being thrown into an open grave, but jerked awake and landed on a bed.”
Eric Jerome Dickey, Finding Gideon
“Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Jace shoot her a look of white rage - but when she glanced at him, he looked as he always did: easy, confident, slightly bored."
Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about book club reading.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
During my long years, I have been a member of a few book clubs. The last one was with the local library before the pandemic hit. As the result of Covid, our library stayed closed for a year and a half and all the meetings and clubs were canceled. Now that they are coming back into existence, however slowly, I've lost the drive to join one. On the other hand, I can’t deny their earlier positive influence and the camaraderie I had with the other readers.
Yet, book clubs in the USA are as old as the USA. The earliest one on record was started in 1634 by Anne Hutchinson while aboard a ship headed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Then this book reading and discussion movement found its popularity during the 1950s. With the onset of the internet age, book clubs began to form on the net and through other venues. Thus grew a whole new genre of literary fiction that some call book-club fiction. When the publishers, mainly Amazon, turned wise to the idea, they called this book-club fiction, upmarket fiction; although some insist the two are separate entities. Still, for being separate, their boundaries are far too intermeshed. From my point of view, the terms Upmarket and Book Club Fiction are synonymous, at least for the time being, until things change again.
So, what is Book Club fiction? Let’s say it is very close to literary fiction but not as heavy and with more acceptable plotlines for the readers. Still, these works are meant for the more sophisticated readers. Book-club fiction involves deeper, more meaningful, characters, settings, and other fiction elements, very close to literary fiction, and has expressive use of language and vocabulary. The plot lines are usually familiar but with depth and with some exotic elements added to them. The stories are still centered on artistic expression, rather than the titillation of most commercial and genre fiction. Still, book club fiction tries not to step on the toes or the sensibilities of its readers.
In our time, one of the first and the most famous of the book clubs formed for larger audiences was Oprah’s Book Club. In the earlier years of her club, Oprah Winfrey chose the heavier classics such as Steinbeck's East of Eden, William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and Elie Wiesel's Night. Later on, she began picking works with more contemporary and socio-political themes.
https://www.oprah.com/app/books.html
https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/books/g23067476/oprah-book-club-list/
With the onset of the 21st century, the book club picks were books like: Atonement by Ian McEwan, The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, and works by Kristin Hannah, Jennifer Egan, Michael Chabon and Jodi Picoult, to list a few.
Of all the books and authors recommended by a book club, I have to say, I was most taken by Elie Wiesel’s Night, which I had heard of on TV when it was picked up by Oprah for her book club. That book still haunts me although it has been so many years since I first read it. It is the true autobiographical story of Eliezer, the author himself, who was sent to Auschwitz and although profoundly and psychologically affected by what he experienced, he gains a deep insight into the human condition, be it of a friend or a foe.
As in Elie Wiesel’s Night, drama doesn’t need to be only in fiction, which is mostly imagined and put together by the author. Drama can be in real life, too, as it is strongly based on characters who are in conflict during a crucial time in their lives.
Also, some book clubs are hesitant to pick controversial subjects; however, drama does exist in such subjects more heavily. That is, subjects and themes such as violence, alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, class issues, intolerance, sexuality, morals, racism, religion, poverty, and corruption, political or otherwise.
Some of the book club discussions usually center around a question one of the members may ask. A few of such questions might be:
 If you could talk to the author what would you ask?
What do you think the author’s goal was in writing this book?
What did you like most about the book? What did you like the least?
How did you like the organization of the plot, the depth of characterization, the impact of setting on the plot, or the use of the language?
What were the power dynamics and most memorable interactions between the characters?
Were there times you disagreed with a character’s actions? What would you have done differently?
If you are interested in book-club reading, a few of the choices by Bibliophile for 2022 are:
French Braid by Anne Tyler
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
The Home-Wreckers by Mary Kay Andrews
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Happy reading and enjoy the drama!
Until next time! 
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Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
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 This Issue's Tip: Think of your story's theme as the internal argument of the character; that is the argument between the character and their own self.
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Feedback for "Facts, Memoirs, and Drama"
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Santeven Quokklaus 
The most stunning memoir I have read is Ghost Boy by Martin Pistorius. An autobiography, I guess, but a look back at when he suffered locked-in syndrome and what happened to him before he was helped to communicate.
Favourite autobiography is Mick Foley's first one; John Lydon's is a close second.
Favourite biography is Ned Kelly by Peter FitzSimons.
I have just finished my first book of memoir. It's a tough write. Where it takes me usually 3 months to write a novel, this took 5 years.
Congrats for finishing your memoir. Good things do take time and it's well-worth it.
You've read some very interesting books, too. Ghost Boy is something else, isn't it!
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Elisa: Snowman Stik 
I'm rather amused by the coincidental timing of this newsletter, as I'd read a couple different blog entries that tackled a prompt relating to memoirs. I found myself stuck on this quote, though: "On the other hand, a complicated life of a seemingly simple protagonist in an everyday setting can arouse just as much interest as the well-known events, provided it is told with literary care." I guess because my already-complicated brain got an even bigger jolt a couple years ago when events beyond my control put my very safety in danger. I initially wrote a memoir-ish journal entry about this experience back in February. Several months later, I decided that it was time to make that entry more accessible to the public. With this piece, I hope that in the end what happened to my city is better understood by those who weren't in the middle of it all. I want to make sure that the impact of the violence on everyday people is not forgotten.
Hard to believe what happens to us through life, but what you went through in your city is absolutely bone-chilling and horrible. I am glad you came out of it okay and could tell us about it. Power to you, Elisa! 
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