What's in your Beach Bag? #Whatchareading
by K.Allen McNamara
This year I started reading book lists early. I had to be ready lest we re-ignite our intention to have a family book group. Last year I was caught like a deer in headlights. But this year I would be prepared.
Flashback: Memorial Day Weekend 2016 found me and my four sister-in-laws along with my niece and my oldest daughter out for a drink to toast the summer season. We managed to claim three bar stools at the local sushi bar (on the bar side not the sushi side) and ordered various cocktails. At first the conversation swirled around our kids then on to the occupations of the twenty-somethings and their post-college life.
Soon we were talking books because, well, most of us planned on hitting the beach with a good read. The responses ricocheted off the barware as we ordered another round, the overhead lights twinkled, and mentally I took notes. After all these ladies were more or less the target audience for my WIP so it made sense to know what had piqued their interest and why.
“I need a good book,” began Kathleen. “I’ve been trying to read a book that helps you calm your active mind and I just end up falling asleep.”
“Must be working,” quipped her sister.
“Seriously, it’s a good book but sometimes I need something to distract me. Make me think about something else.” Kath sipped her martini.
“Well,”said Judy “I’m up for a good book too. Thought I’d nab something for Kim’s bookshelf.”
“Be my guest,” I said.
The bookcase in our Cape house great room is filled with books - some new, some old, some left behind with a satisfying “ah” while others were abandoned because they just didn’t hook the owner. I don't want my WIP to be one of those. I need to pay close attention.
Next up: the 23 and 25 year olds who list books like Luckiest Girl Alive or Girl on the Train psycho thrillers they had just finished reading; but they also favor The Red Queen series and books like it.
“Sometimes I need to read a book like the Red Queen ones to move on after reading something dark,” my daughter explained.
“I know what you mean,” said Tia “That’s why I usually read a fiction and then a non-fiction. I just downloaded Salt: A World History.”
Eileen was currently reading Jane Eyre - “for book group, we’re trying to read classic female author and then a contemporary female author” she explained. A noble concept for a book group. I like that they are focused on female authors there's hope for my little WIP.
"Book Group!" Some one exclaimed. "We should have one!"
And right then the idea was born! Why didn’t we pick out a book and all try to read it by the next family gathering (Fourth of July)? We could call our group “Beach Blanket Book Group” or “Books by the Sea” - other names were bandied about and then we got down to the parameters.
It couldn’t be too long. 300-325 pages was a safe number. It should be set by a beach or in the summer. It couldn’t be too gory or too creepy - not everyone was a fan of the nail-biting thriller. No Fifty-Shades of Grey Please! But sex was fine. Nothing dystopian or fantastical - some couldn’t wrap their minds about such things. Parallel universes, time travel - think again. Historical fiction was fine but not WWII or medieval romance. And it should be something Grammie, the matriarch, would want to read which meant “a good murder mystery love-story, nothing too literary” as she is fond of saying.
All six pairs of eyes turned toward me and blinked expectantly. “You pick, Kim.”
“Yeah, you pick.”
“After all you’re the writer.”
A chorus of affirmations followed.
I looked at them. These lovely women are technically my fellow readers; they are the ones or others like them whom I hope will read my book alongside writers (like the students I have met at Grub Street in workshops and in classes). Here was a microcosm of my potential target audience who were wandering all over a virtual bookstore when it came to picking out a book. Where would I begin to find a book that would meet all their criteria and satisfy my own (a solid arc, round characters, good setting…). Where indeed?
I consulted a librarian friend, Eileen @EileenTomarchio, with my strict requirements. She suggested the following via email:
Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead. LOVED it. Funny, amazingly-written, New England family shenanigans in a coastal summer setting, more on the literary fiction side than women's fiction.
Another book is Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan; she hadn't read this but a beach-set family story focused on sisters, very well reviewed.
The best book (she had just finished) All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage. Dark, haunting literary murder mystery/ ghost story/ psychological thriller set in the 1970s in New York State. Great writing and characters. So compelling. But not the feel-good book! No beach.
The House on Salt Hay Road by Carin Clevidence, a family saga set in 1930s on Cape Cod, lovely book, but also a few years old.
In the end I chose Seating Arrangements. It weighed in the right number of pages, there was a beach (it takes place on a fictional Nantucket-like island). The novel follows the pretentiousness of an affluent white Connecticut family over a wedding weekend. The family for the most part seems to be filled with a great deal of ennui. Satirical, yes and no. Farce-like, definitely. But none of our Beachside Book Group (BBG) really cared for the characters (the POV alternates largely between the father and a daughter with a few other characters taking the mic as it were to add just a little more to the fray). Some were intrigued by the characters, others saw the humor while others weren’t invested enough to finish it. Two didn’t even read it (they forgot all about it despite the emails and the return acknowledgements) and the twenty-somethings, well, they really wanted a psycho-thriller not preppy soap opera where most of the action settles on the father’s inability to grow up. Interestingly, Grammie did plow through it and thought it was entertaining. In her words “they were all just a little full of themselves, weren’t they?” We never had a group discussion but several one-on-ones or in groups of twos and threes sandwiched in between meal prep or over glasses of wine before dinner. Was our BBG a flop? Yes and No. We resolved to do better in 2017.
So this year, in the week leading up to Memorial Day 2017, I looked over these lists. Ten Writers of Color You Should Be Reading; The 24 Best Books to Read This Summer ; 15 Plot Twists You Never Saw Coming
I asked my fellow bloggers for recommendations see Resources and Faves. I asked my friend, a memoirist: “War and Peace” she replied via text. She went on to say she was three quarters through it; and "it’s supposed to be the best book ever written and at 1100 pages it’s for the true leisure class” - implication: not a beach read.
Personally, I’m trying to read books by Writers of Color or LGBTQ authors thus my TBR (To Be Read) pile is more even eclectic and large. These lists and Grub Street's Muse 2017 have made me resort to stacking books in stylish baskets next to the bed and keeping my ipad fully charged. I’ve also downloaded several from Audible.com for those drives to the Cape when it's just me and the dogs.
Currently, I’m reading: The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (which is unbelievably spellbinding and chilling and is executed with such exquisite care and grace that I am in awe). And Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan which is comfortingly familiar as it is set in Boston, hails from the shores of County Clare, and deals with the drama of an Irish family who keeps their secret truths too close to the chest. Sullivan also wrote Maine, which clocked in 528 pages, was therefore sadly too many pages for the 2016 BBG.
As I said: This year I was ready. Despite the cloudy forecast, we went out to toast summer's beginning but we were shy a few attendees. Somehow the subject of a our summer book group, the BBG, never came up and all too soon the weekend was over. This meant we would all just read what we wanted to read. And isn’t that what summers are for? To read. Rain or Shine? But rest assured, I will be asking what's in their beach bag this summer. After all, I need to keep up with my target audience. ***Email or Tweet @revisions101 or @kallenmac #whatchareading we'd love to hear.***
P.S. If you’re searching for a good book this summer, I still contend that when in doubt, never underestimate a good book list and always consult a well-read librarian who also happens to be a hapless writer. Happy Reading.
