When I tell people I have a job facilitating book clubs, the first response is almost always, “That’s a job?”
Boy, is it. I work for a company that employs people like me: writers with doctorates, a need for cash and very few marketable skills. Most of my book clubs are made up of women somewhere between the ages of 45 and 99. They’ve met in a variety of ways — in college, in the pickup line at their now-grown children’s schools, through their ex-husbands. What they all have in common: They love to read, and they want to do it as efficiently as possible.
I’m hired to make the book club run smoothly — to make everyone feel heard and seen, much like I imagine mothers do with their small children. (I’m not a mother; the closest I’ve come is a long-held souvenir spoon collection.) I’m there to smooth out all of the snags that sometimes occur when nobody’s in charge. There are personality differences, disagreement with book choices, intrinsic ways of seeing the world that can occasionally come to a head in a book club.
“Say that again, Janet,” I might say, after another woman has interrupted her for the sixth time. “Let Janet speak!” I’ll try not to yell.
“You liked that?” another woman one might say, about a book the rest of them loved.
I’m there to remind them that everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if they think that opinion is wrong.
Each book club has its own distinct personality — its various casts of characters and rituals. I’m paid to learn what each book club wants and to try and give it to them (sort of). Some don’t know what they want, or think they know what they want when they really want something else. For instance, they might think they want a Booker Prize finalist, only to find it infuriatingly opaque.
“What if,” I’ll say gently, “we try something … lighter? But literary! Definitely still literary.” (Ann Patchett almost always does the trick.)
Unless, of course, they think they want a beach read. In which case, they’ll read it and declare, “Not enough substance!”
“How about something a little more deep?” I say. (Ann Patchett almost always does the trick).
A book club is filled with a hundred little paradoxes: They want to learn but not be lectured to. They want to enjoy the book but still find it challenging.
Some book clubs open bottles of wine and start the discussion off with whose ex-husband did what new and infuriating thing. (I’m riveted.) Some book clubs sip stoic glasses of water, like they’re in a graduate school seminar, waiting for me to begin. Some order pizzas they eat from their laps, and some arrange complicated cheeseboards, which I hover around in a way I hope is breezy, that doesn’t scream starving writer.
“Is that Gouda?” I ask casually.
Often, there are complicated dynamics at play I can only guess at, that have existed long before me — sometimes before I was even born. Sometimes one woman will dismiss another woman’s opinion so immediately, I can’t help but wonder if they have some long and secret rivalry. Did they sleep with each other’s husbands? Did they sleep with each other? (Based on their reaction to Miranda July’s “All Fours,” I’m guessing not.)
And anyway, it’s not my job to ask. It’s my job to make sure they get something out of this. That they didn’t waste their money! That, if they claim to have not liked the book very much when they arrive, they liked it more after they leave. Or at least, they appreciate what they didn’t like.
Here are some things that my book clubs usually don’t like: bad mothers. Open marriages. Books with no discernible plot. And yet.
A good discussion can change their opinions, when they’re open to it, and the good book club members are always that: open to changing their minds. When the book club goes well, I’m reminded why I read: because it opens us up to other ways of living, other ways of thinking.
And sometimes, my book clubs read a novel that speaks so wholly to who they are — some unarticulated version — they wonder if they’d written it themselves.
“Me too,” I tell them. “I saw myself too.” And we’re all left a little breathless, looking around at each other, as though something magical has occurred.
5 tips for setting up your own book club:
- Set the ground rules early. Is this a literary book club where you try and read the newest award winners? Or is this a book club that reads widely, across genres? Does a different member pick the novel every month? Or do you vote on it and decide by committee? How long do you meet for?
- Share the stage. Make sure everyone gets their time to shine. Try not to interrupt, or if you have the kind of book club that likes interrupting each other, make that known.
- Meet monthly and stick to a set schedule. If you try to schedule each month independently, someone will always have “something that day they can’t miss” and will feel secretly resentful of the rest of the members for meeting anyway.
- Don’t get personal. Sometimes I am so attached to a book I love that when someone says they hate it, I find it difficult not to hear “I hate you.”
- Stay open. If the club selects a novel or genre you never would have picked, try listening more than talking. You just might be surprised.
Silverberg is a writer and comedian. She holds a PhD in creative writing and literature from USC. Her debut novel, “First Time, Long Time,” is out now.
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