We had an animated conversation about the state government shutdown, national debt stalemate, and general political turmoil that grips our land. Needless to say, we were not in total agreement! We were at Loring Kitchen and Bar, a place kind of hard to find and navigate to. The waitress, who overheard much of our discussion, said that in her experience we were only the second group to actually talk about serious things in her six-month tenure at the restaurant. We took that as a compliment, but again bemoaned the sorry state of our national discussion.
When we got to the book, Ruins, a story of a Cuban supporter of the Castro revolution whose life sours, some of the talk again turned political, especially revolving around the notion that American liberals might kind of like Castro. Three in our group have been to Cuba, liked many things about the people and the place, but--flash!--disavowed supporting dictatorship.
Our next meeting is scheduled for September 13, and the book will be Alice Munroe's Too Much Happiness. Other titles considered were Robertson Davies' What's Bred in the Bones, and Harry Bernstein's The Invisible Wall. Max is up next time.
