Pretty good, and grew on me!

So, this is the thing, I think, about a GOOD book club - it makes you appreciate the book even more than you would have just reading it. For example, I read All This Talk of Love, by Christopher Castellani for the most recent Grub Street book club. I liked the story, and the writing, and over all was feeling positive about the book, although I wouldn't have said I really loved it, or that I thought it was a masterful literary work. I'm not sure about the latter, still, and probably it's not, but I also think it's a much better book, from a writing & "construction" standpoint, than I at first gave it credit for being. And that's because of the discussion we had at Grub Street. When I read it, I read it fast, needing to read it over a couple of days to finish it in time. I wasn't necessarily thinking about the nuances. But I've always found that I figure out the most, for myself, while talking - and, yes, sometimes arguing - with other people about a topic. This was no exception; hearing what other people thought, even if I disagreed with them, let me to consider new issues and questions that I hadn't in my initial read-through.

It was also interesting to find out more about the book's context; I read it as a stand-alone, but it's actually the third book in a trilogy, so hearing about how the author balanced those aspects as he wrote, and revised, was interesting. I really do enjoy these Grub Street book clubs; it's just great to be able to talk abut the book as a work of art (the tenses, the set-up and structure, etc.) and not just as a story. And getting to hear from the authors themselves, at the end of the session, is great.

Right, so, the book... Basically, it's about an Italian-American family (parents who emigrated in the mid-20th century, their first-generation kids, and, to a much lesser extent, the second-gen grandkids) in Delaware (Delaware? Or PA?), all haunted, in one way or the other, by the suicide of the oldest son decades ago, when he was a teenager. The mother is getting older, and the daughter wants to organize a family trip back to the old country; mom objects, and disaffected son supports her.

It's a spot-on protrayal of Italian-American families, in many ways (not surprisingly, since it's the background the author comes from), but it's even better just at showing FAMILIES. How they can be messed up and wonderful, and hateful and loving, and confused and confident, all at the same time. The author also did a great job of having characters who are both unappealing and understandable, or who do horrid things but aren't horrid people. So, basically, like real people.

Yeah - the more I think about it, the more I like it.