November 2021: Dear Committee Members by Juile Schumacher

 Becky picked Dear Committee Members by Juile Schumacher for us to read in November. It's a funny one - especially for us English majors!!

ABOUT THE BOOK

A Best Book of the Year:  NPR and Boston Globe

Finally a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary."

Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can't catch a break with his brilliant (he thinks) work Accountant in a Bordello, based on Melville's Bartleby. In short, his life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this droll and inventive novel uses to tell that tale is a series of hilarious letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies. We recommend Dear Committee Members to you in the strongest possible terms.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julie Schumacher grew up in Wilmington, Delaware and graduated from Oberlin College and Cornell University.

Her first published story, “Reunion,” written to fulfill an undergraduate writing assignment (“tell a family tale”) was reprinted in The Best American Short Stories 1983. Subsequent stories and essays were published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, MS, The Chronicle for Higher Education, Prize Stories: The O.Henry Awards , and other venues.

Her first novel, The Body Is Water , was published by Soho Press in 1995 and was an ALA Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Schumacher’s other books include the national best-seller, Dear Committee Members (winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor); The Shakespeare Requirement , Doodling for Academics (a satirical coloring book); and five novels for younger readers.

Schumacher lives in St. Paul and is a Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches in the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English. She has won multiple teaching awards and has been recognized as a “Scholar of the College.”

From https://julieschumacher.com

April 2020: 'Future Home of the Living God' by Louise Erdrich

Amy has picked "Future Home of the Living God" by Louise Erdrich for our next book. We were originally reading it for March - but COVID-19. So...

ABOUT THE BOOK

A New York Times Notable Book of 2017
Louise Erdrich, the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of LaRose and The Round House, paints a startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a cataclysmic event.
The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Twenty-six-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.
Though she wants to tell the adoptive parents who raised her from infancy, Cedar first feels compelled to find her birth mother, Mary Potts, an Ojibwe living on the reservation, to understand both her and her baby’s origins. As Cedar goes back to her own biological beginnings, society around her begins to disintegrate, fueled by a swelling panic about the end of humanity.
There are rumors of martial law, of Congress confining pregnant women. Of a registry, and rewards for those who turn these wanted women in. Flickering through the chaos are signs of increasing repression: a shaken Cedar witnesses a family wrenched apart when police violently drag a mother from her husband and child in a parking lot. The streets of her neighborhood have been renamed with Bible verses. A stranger answers the phone when she calls her adoptive parents, who have vanished without a trace. It will take all Cedar has to avoid the prying eyes of potential informants and keep her baby safe.
A chilling dystopian novel both provocative and prescient, Future Home of the Living God is a startlingly original work from one of our most acclaimed writers: a moving meditation on female agency, self-determination, biology, and natural rights that speaks to the troubling changes of our time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Louise Erdrich is the author of twelve novels as well as volumes of poetry, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her debut novel, Love Medicine, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent novel, The Plague of Doves, a New York Times bestseller, received the highest praise from Philip Roth, who wrote, "Louise Erdrich's imaginative freedom has reached its zenith--The Plague of Doves is her dazzling masterpiece." Louise Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.

Meet the author

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, the author of "Hannah, Delivered" graced our September meeting to talk with us about her book and the 12-year process it took to get it published. We had a lovely time!!

September 2014 book: 'Hannah, Delivered'

I'm picking a book written by a local author for us to read in September:

"Hannah, Delivered" by Elizabeth Jarret Andrew.

The author lives in my neighborhood, and teaches writing classes at The Loft. She has written several other books, including a spiritual memoir.

Hannah, Delivered: A Novel

Late one night in a busy St. Paul hospital, a nurse midwife drags Hannah Larson out from behind her reception desk to assist with a birth.  When Hannah witnesses that baby tumble into the world, her secure, conventional life gets upended by a fierce desire to deliver babies.  So begins Hannah’s journey away from her comfort zone. In a midwifery apprenticeship in New Mexico, she befriends a male midwife, defends a teenage mom, and learns to trust women’s bodies, then moves back to Minnesota to start her own illicit birth practice.  Hannah’s need to stay safe proves both an asset and a liability: homebirth isn’t legal in Minnesota in the 1990’s; to deliver healthy babies, Hannah risks jail time, her community’s respect, and her career.  The key to unlocking her fear rests in one birth—her own.

Hannah, Delivered tells the story of how inexplicable passion, buried strength, and professional skill deliver one woman from fear into a rich and risk-filled life.

FYI: Cambridge Community Read

FOR YOUR INFORMATION
 The Community Read in Cambridge, Minn. this year is "Safe from the Sea" by Peter Geye. It's set in Northern Minnesota and sounds quite fascinating. (Don't be surprised if it's my book choice in a few months :)

In case you're interested:

Author Event with Peter Geye

 May 2nd

4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. book signing at
Scout & Morgan Books

7:00 p.m. Presentation, book signing and refreshments at the
Cambridge Community College

 

        

Set in the landscape of Northern Minnesota and on the unforgiving waters of Lake Superior, Geye tells a story of father and son who have been estranged for many years after a tragic shipwreck. When Noah receives a call from his dying father, a former iron ore ship officer, he is forced to return to Minnesota to care for a man he hasn't spoken to in years.Safe From the Sea is a beautifully written novel that describes so well the unique sense of place that is the Lake Superior landscape. Click here to listen to Peter read an excerpt from Safe From the Sea.