Short Story Book Club

This is a short story book club, by which we mean not collections of short stories, but rather books that are meaningful but short, usually under 250 pages. We read the book, then come and have a spirited conversation. Book discussions are places to explore ideas, to talk about how we felt about interesting or baffling or somewhere-in-between books. They are testing grounds for thought, and this discussion group is no different.  

We have ordered eight copies of A Man's Place for the discussion, for book discussion members to take home. There are also copies of the book on mel.org, which can be found here. 

A Man's Place synopsis:

Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her practical examination for a teaching certificate. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labor, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection.

Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux's cold observation reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. She scrutinizes the importance he attributed to manners and language that came so unnaturally to him as he struggled to provide for his family with a grocery store and cafe in rural France.

Over the course of the book, Ernaux grows up to become the uncompromising observer now familiar to the world, while her father matures into old age with a staid appreciation for life as it is and for a daughter he cautiously, even reluctantly admires. A Man's Place is the companion book to her critically acclaimed memoir about her mother, A Woman's Story.