Category — Book Club

Intrigued by the idea of a book tour and want to read more about Happiness Sold Separately? Hop along to more stops on the Barren Bitches Book Brigade Tour by visiting the master list in the post above. Want to come along for the next tour? Sign up begins today for tour #8 (The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood) and all are welcome to join along (see the post above to sign up). All you need is a book and blog.

Lolly Winston’s books take you right to the edge of your worst fears and allow you to peer down into the valley with a safety rail between you and reality. In Good Grief, Winston explores the months following the death of a spouse. From the grief that hits you in the most unexpected of places–think breakdown in the produce section–to the rebuilding of a life, Winston’s book is raw and hopeful at the same time. Happiness Sold Separately is a wonderful second novel exploring the worst fears associated with infertility–the breakdown of a marriage, the loss of a hard-won pregnancy, the domino effect leading down through grandchildren. She writes the book with an aching beauty that had me nodding my head at times and shouting at the characters at others. The book drew me in and I cared about the characters, and that, for me, is the mark of a good read.

The end of the book was left open to the reader. Do you think that Elinor and Ted stayed together, or that they really finally separate? Did she pursue adoption on her own, or did they do another round of IVF with PGD? Do you think she ended up happy, or did she continue to struggle?

I like that Winston didn’t neatly wrap up the novel with a pat, clear ending. Life is messy–infertility is extremely messy–and I think all the characters bounced through so many conflicting emotions through the text that it would have been a let-down if they had found perfect clarity simply because we were on the last page.

I set down the book choosing to believe that Ted and Elinor stayed together. I think they actually have a lot in common in their grief and one of their problems is that they never share their mutual grief. I’d like to believe that the blow to Ted’s head actually made him wake up and see that he should have shared that dream with Elinor when his heart was ready to explode with excitement over the idea of adoption. Elinor never believes that Ted will be right alongside her on the journey, but I think if she let him be there in the way that he expresses himself (and not as a reflection of her own expression), she would see that he is just as desirous of a family and adoption would be an excellent path to parenthood for them.

Lolly circles back repeatedly to examine the peculiar dynamics of a marriage plagued by infertility. In particular, she focuses on the conflicting desires for closeness and distance that Elinor experiences. Why do you think Elinor “is irritated by her husband when he was attentive, and then resentful when he stepped back to giver her room?” (p. 12). Even during difficult treatment cycles, Ted was not a source of comfort to her (p. 26). Why?

You know how you feel when your back hurts and it makes your entire body hurt and consequently, you can never get comfortable. Your whole body focuses on that pain. It hurts to have other people touch you, you can’t get into a comfortable position, you think rolling onto your side will help, but it only brings more pain.

That’s sort of what infertility is like. The back is the connection for the whole body and the soul is the connection for all emotions. Infertility is like having an inflamed soul.

I think infertility and loss can cause so much pain that there isn’t a comfortable position. And even if pockets of comfort can be found within the panic, it isn’t a permanent fix. It can be suffocating to see your life unfold in a way that you never dreamed possible. We can, within reason, choose our careers. We can’t, at times, choose the role we always thought we would own–parenthood.

As we see glimpses into Ted & Elinor’s relationship after their unsuccessful fertility treatments, we discover that Ted seeks solace in the garage and the gym — places where he can “fix” things. Elinor finds refuge in the laundry room and by re-reading classic novels from college. Why do you think Elinor is drawn to these activities? What activities do you engage in as a way to soothe your soul during your fertility quest and why do you think you are drawn to them? What about your partner – does he/she have places or tasks that provide some refuge?

Bread baking. It started either pre-treatments or at the beginning of treatments. Josh bought me a bread textbook that had bread baking lessons as well as a bread stone for the oven. It was the perfect medium to work through my frustrations. It was warm and soft and smelled good. It wouldn’t be a stretch to play Freud and say that dough became my replacement for a baby. I think Elinor was drawn to laundry for the same reason I was drawn to bread baking. There is a rhythm to it and it feels productive. It is a low stakes accomplishment. If the laundry bleeds, you can usually fix the stains. If the bread doesn’t rise, you can force the dough or start over. It’s low stakes. And it’s on my time. My cycle, the whole idea of trying and waiting and having such a small window of a chance for things to happen, it’s maddening how much of it is tied to time. I can bake bread whenever I wish. I can bake it at night or in the morning. I can churn out 48 bagels and then ignore the oven for the next few weeks. It’s all on my terms.

I was actually thinking about writing a bread post that people could print out and try in their kitchen. A bread baking online tutorial. Yes? No? Would you want to learn how to make bagels?

The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things. Of future book tours and Jenna’s tale of uterine linings. Of whether to do a Chabon book or read Max Tivoli.

Perhaps that didn’t work as well as I would have liked.

But it is time, my sweet barren bitches, to set up the next few tours to take us through winter. Why set them up now? Because (1) some people like to read ahead and know what is happening next. (2) It gives me a chance to invite an author to participate. (3) Some non-US participants like to purchase all their books at once and save on shipping. And (4) some of us are used bookstore devotees and need the extra time to hunt down copies. Oh–and (5) for popular books or new books, you can get on a wait list at the library in advance. So, that’s why.

I’m going to throw out some books I’ve collected along the way and I apologize, I was keeping a list of suggestions that people have thrown out since the last time we chose a bunch of book tours and now I can’t find it. So if you’ve ever given me a book title, throw it out again in the comments section so everyone can see and I’ll add it to the list. Only caveat this time: if you’re suggesting a book, add why it would make a good selection. In other words, a few words about the book and its general plotline (or, if non-fiction, subject matter).

Guidelines for choosing books: we read fiction or non-fiction and try to do a little bit of each. In the past, we have read…

1. The Ultimate Insider’s Guide to Adoption (Elizabeth Swire Falker)
2. Children of Men (P.D. James)
3. Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
4. Waiting for Daisy (Peggy Orenstein)
5. The Kid (Dan Savage)
6. Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (Ayelet Waldman)
7. Happiness Sold Separately (Lolly Winston)–current tour
8. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)–coming up
9. Inconceivable (Julia Indichova)–coming up

So, you can see, a wide-assortment of fiction and non-fiction. All of the books contain infertility or pregnancy loss–even if it is only in passing. I’d like to widen this a bit to add books that could be interesting to read from an IF point-of-view. One of the book suggestions below is a non-IF book (as far as I know), but I thought it would be interesting because it explores where our obligations to others begins and where protecting ourselves ends. See–pretty interesting when you compare the situation to what happens sometimes within friendships when IF comes into play…

So, here I’ve compiled a list of interesting books that I’d like to throw onto the voting table. What they’re about and why I think it would be interesting to read them. Keep adding books until the voting post comes out. Then we’ll all vote and take the top vote-earners and make them our upcoming tours.

The Empty Picture Frame (Jenna Nadeau): a book by one of our own in the IF/pg loss blogosphere. I just got a chance to read this book last week and it is wonderful. Interspersing old journal entries with straight narrative and her husband’s thoughts, the book comes together to give a panoramic view of IVF and the day-to-day life of someone struggling with infertility. I think what I loved most about this book is the lack of space between the writer and the reader. I think it’s a difficult task of a writer to bring the reader so close to the words. And Jenna succeeds in conveying the anger, sadness, frustration, and hope tied to infertility. Why I think we should read this book: first and foremost, it supports one of our own. Secondly, it’s a book unlike any that we’ve tackled before in that it gives multiple points of view. Thirdly, a portion of the sale goes back to Resolve. Oh…and fourthly, Jenna rocks.

Gilead (Marilynne Robinson): Marilynne Robinson’s first piece of fiction since winning the PEN/Hemingway Award in 1981 for Housekeeping. The narrator is a preacher who has lived most of his life in Iowa. The book is a letter to his seven-year-old son who may never know his older father due to the preacher’s poor health. The letter serves as a way for this father to leave behind a sense of himself for his child. How does this book tie into IF/pg loss? The narrator always wanted a child, though his first wife and child both died during childbirth. His best friend, another preacher, has a large family and he names his son after our narrator, making him the godfather. But what is a kind gesture can also slice the heart of a man who longs to be a father. He finally achieves fatherhood after a very long wait and it is bittersweet to think about the time father and son could have had together had things worked out according to plan. Why I think we should read this book: Gilead is a mainstream, popular book right now and it will (1) be easy for everyone to find and (2) will make you look smart when you talk about it with other people at your next cocktail party…

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (Michael Chabon): what if, instead of Israel, Jews were given a temporary settlement in Alaska after World War II? It was a real idea proposed by Roosevelt and Chabon’s imagination runs with this concept, taking us to the possible ending of the settlement in a detective-murder-mystery-many-other-genres type novel. Yes, Jewish bloggers may need to provide insight into some of the in-jokes, but I’ve heard only good reviews for this book. How does it connect to IF/pg loss? The narrator loses his child from a medical termination. Why I think we should read this book: (1) he’s the husband of Ayelet Waldman (who was book club choice #6–see list above) so it could be interesting to hear how the loss they both experienced in real life was processed by two different writers and (2) we’ve done few male authors (only one at this point) and it would be nice to read a male point-of-view.

The Confessions of Max Tivoli (Andrew Sean Greer): another male author creating another interesting read. Max Tivoli was born backwards in 1871. In other words, he was born as a 70-year-old man and he is aging backwards, working his way towards becoming a newborn. A scary thought since he obviously knows when his life will end–1941. Due to this strange phenomenon, his life intersects others at various points, constantly appearing as a new person each time. Though he should be around the same age as his one-time wif
e, he meets her during her youth as an old man, in middle-age as her equal, and towards the end of his life, as her son’s friend. Pregnancy loss in the novel makes it relevant to our book club. Why I think we should read this book: (1) the male point-of-view factor, (2) the coolness of this story, (3) excellent writing.

Embryo Culture (Beth Kohl): I just started reading this one and I’ve already figured out from her website that IVF was ultimately successful for Kohl. But still, I’m drawn into the story, waiting to hear what will be the tipping point that brings her that first child. Well-written and engaging, it is not only a first-hand account of treatments and the emotions of infertility, but a look at treatments as an industry, how fertility is handled in other cultures, and the far-reaching grasp of technology. I think it speaks volumes that I think about this book when I’m not reading it and I look forward to picking it up again at the end of the day. Why I think we should read this book: good, old-fashioned look at infertility.

The Mistress’s Daughter (A.M. Homes): simply put, this book made me think. A.M. Homes’ memoir about her reunion with the mother who placed her for adoption many years earlier and the father who is absent even when present is truly a look at nature vs. nurture–where do our bloodlines end and environment begins? Even if adoption isn’t on your horizon, it will make you consider your own heritage. Why I think we should read this book: I liked reading about adoption from an adoptee’s point-of-view and her electronic anthropology made me want to start googling backwards through my own family.

Songs Without Words (Ann Packer): a non-IF/pg loss book (as far as I know) that explores the friendship between two women. Liz has always been the friend who takes care of Sarabeth. But when the tables turn and Liz is the one in need of comfort, Sarabeth is too riddled with traumatic memories to step up and provide support. Depression (and suicide) figure into the friendship in a multitude of ways. Why I think we should read this book: I think a book about personal limitations and seeing how these women overcome or are paralyzed by their limitations could be an interesting read in comparison to IF/pg loss.

So Close (Tertia Albertyn): again, a book by one of our own, this memoir covers Tertia’s quest to become a mother via IVF as well as her son, Ben’s, life and death. If you read her blog, you know that she ultimately becomes a mother to twins, but even knowing that outcome doesn’t stop you from crying as you read through her story. This book should be available in the US and Canada later this year (perhaps winter) or it can be purchased online from South Africa. Why I think we should read this book: she’s one of our own AND she is an excellent writer.

This is not the formal vote–these are just my contributions. Though feel free to either cheer on these choices and second them OR to tell me to scratch one off the list (and why). Remember, the Barren Bitches Book Brigade is open to everyone in the community, even if you haven’t participated in a tour in the past. Submit your own (and tell us a bit about the book and why we should read it) by Friday, October 5. Formal voting happening next week.

And it’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaack. Here is the master list for the seventh tour of the Barren Bitches Book Club. What is the Barren Bitches Book Club? It’s a book club from the comfort of your own living room. The book club is conducted entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way. And we tend to read books with IF or pg loss as a part of the book if not a major plot point. We alternate between fiction and non-fiction.

Book: Happiness Sold Separately
Author: Lolly Winston
Start Date: September 19
Question Due: October 24
Question List Sent Out: October 25
Post Dates: October 29 and 30
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)

Cool addition for this book tour: the author, Lolly Winston, is participating and accepting questions about her book!

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below on October 29 to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. I will keep adding to this list until 11 p.m. on October 24th. The list is currently open)

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters (Melissa)
The Annex (Josh)
Twisted Ovaries (Vanessa)
Southern Infertility (Samantha)
Beaten But Not Bowed (Drowned Girl)
Sticky Bean (Kristen)
Weebles Wobblog (Lori)
The Dunn Family (Erica)
Candy’s Land (Candy)
Mommy Someday? (Michelle)
Blood Signs (Wordgirl)
Precious Little (Carrie)
Coming2Terms (Pamela Jeanne)
That Was The Plan (Ms. Planner)
A Little Sweetness (Meghan)
All Things Deb (Deb)
Waiting for…? (Amy)
Road Blocks and Rollercoasters (R&R)
Where is My Happiness? (Bean)
The Open Door (Deanna)
Baby Steps to Baby Shoes (Baby Steps)
Desperate to Multiply (Portia)
Fatty Pants (Fattypants)
Outlandish Notions (Sharah)
The Infertile Long and Winding Road (Ms. Infertile)
No Swimmers in the Tubes… (Noswimmers)
Fertilize Me (Farah)

Not on the list and want to join? Drop me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. You can add yourself up until 11 p.m. on October 24th.

How the book tour works:

(1) leave a comment or send me an email (thetowncriers@gmail.com) saying that you’re interested in participating.

(2) read Happiness Sold Separately by October 24th (or at least enough of it in order to ask a question to the group).

(3) at any point, you can email me questions directly for Lolly Winston and I will pass them along to her and then compile the answers in another post.

(4) create a single question that would kick off a discussion (in other words, any question that leads to more than a “yes” or “no” answer where someone can express their opinion) and mail it to me on October 24th (or any time beforehand). I will send you a reminder email close to the date. Click here to see sample questions from tour #4.

(5) on October 25th, I will send you a list of possible questions. Everyone will choose 3 questions off the list and answer them in a blog entry. You will find out if you are posting on October 29th or 30th (you can choose).

(6) on October 29th, people will begin to post their entry. Each day, I will post a list of all the people putting up their entry that day so people can go around and read the entries and comment (start a discussion back and forth in the comments section). Reading the entries and commenting on the posts is the best part of the tour–by the end of the week, you should have a comment from every participant (and maybe even a few new permanent blog readers).

New List Today:

Did you somehow miss this interview with Ayelet Waldman conducted by the participants of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade? I’ll give you a hint…you’ll see it if you scroll down a post or two. Or you can click on the hyperlinked text. Wanted to make sure people didn’t miss her answers because they added a layer of depth to my reading of the book. And it’s pretty cool to hear a writer answer questions about her own work. And Ayelet Waldman rocks, in general. So…

But also, welcome to the sixth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade–a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.

Just to explain, this book club is entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way.

Book: Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
Author: Ayelet Waldman
Start Date: July 19th
Post Dates: September 17 and 18
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. This list is the second of two groups).

Group B:

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters (Melissa)–my post is below or you can click on the hyperlinked blog name
Epi-blog (Jenna)
Child Bearing Hips (Cece)
Oscar Wants a Playmate (Jackie)
Our Dance With Infertility (Amy)
Sticky Bean (Kristen)
Fatty Pants (Fattypants)
Anne Imagination (Anne)
Fertilize Me (Farah)
That Was the Plan (Mrs. Planner)

Even if you haven’t read Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else’s critique.

Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The next book for book tour #7 is Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston. The author, Lolly Winston, will be reading along too for this tour and it will be possible to ask her questions about the book.

The Details: Tour #7 will start September 19th. Participants will read Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston. On Wednesday, October 24th everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to thetowncriers@gmail.com. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you on October 25th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog on October 29th or 30th (we will break up into two smaller groups and you can choose which day works best for you when the date gets closer). Each day of the tour, I’ll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.

If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #7, leave a comment below or send me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you’d like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn’t have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you’re a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour’s participant list. Want to participate but live overseas and want to order many books at once in order to save on shipping? The next few tours are always listed on my side bar under the book icon. Happy reading.

And speaking of which…the time is coming soon to choose the next few books. Start thinking about future choices and I’ll post a running list soon so people can put it to a vote.

The Barren Bitches Book Brigade has suddenly become as tangled and thematic as a ride on It’s a Small World. Our second online interview took place a few months ago with Peggy Orenstein when we read her book, Waiting for Daisy. Our third online interview features a writer who popped up in Waiting for Daisy during a Yom Kippur scene–the very same holiday coming up this weekend on the Jewish calendar. Allow me to introduce you to the divine and daring Ayelet Waldman.

If you’re looking for more coincidences, Ayelet is a blogger herself–first of the now-defunct Bad Mother and later a columnist for Salon. She is an ardent feminist, interested in women’s health issues. She is a former lawyer and a current writer of not only Love and Other Impossible Pursuits and Daughter’s Keeper, but the popular Mommy-Track Mysteries. She is outspoken and confident–she speaks her mind and says what many of us think privately. She is, in my opinion, the human embodiment of that old strange description: “a breath of fresh air.”

For the sixth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade, we read her recent novel, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. Emilia’s life is coming apart after the death of her infant daughter. Her grief consumes her work and marriage. Simultaneously, she is step-parenting the precious and precocious William, who always seems to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Throw in a furious ex-wife, a couple of well-intentioned friends, and a mother who is rekindling a relationship with her own ex-husband and Emilia’s life seems like it is on the verge of imploding. An intense novel with achingly beautiful moments, Waldman hits it out of the park with Emilia’s loss and rebirth.

Like Waldman herself, Emilia is smart and sassy–she speaks her mind and has definite opinions. You may not always agree with the character. She may make you frustrated beyond belief. But if you’re open to the experience, she will also make you think. She will make you ask yourself hard questions–not to change your mind to match her own, but to strengthen your own internal arguments.

Participants in the book tours can ask the author their questions as they read. I sent along this list of questions to Ayelet and she got back to me in an extremely impressive hour-and-a-half. How much do I love this woman? A very public thank you to Ayelet for reading along with the book club, commenting on our posts, and answering our questions:

You have been the subject of controversy due to your openness about taboo subjects such as suicide and abortion on your blog, “Bad Mommy.” How has this affected you and how you write? Do you ever feel you should censor yourself or do you feel honesty is the best policy?

Michael, my husband, describes writing as the process of making a golem out of clay. You create this creature, and then you write the word “life” on its forehead and it comes alive. Now, when the Jews made the golem, they did it to save themselves. And the golem did that to a certain extent. But when you bring a golem to life, he is alive. He does what he wants. Maybe he saves you, and maybe he turns on you. Writing is like that. If you’re not in danger, then you aren’t doing it well. If you’re not in danger, then your golem is dead on the page.

Was writing this book therapeutic for you in some way? As I read the book, I wondered if you, the author, were grieving a significant loss, adjusting to being a stepparent, or working out some dynamics in your family of origin. It seemed as if you were to close with your characters, that I wondered if in some way, you also sensed that figurative closeness with them.

I don’t have the step-parenting issues, although my mom was, like Emilia’s, a step-mother. But I did lose a pregnancy in the second trimester. I’ve written about that on Salon, too. That experience was so profoundly miserable, I grieved for so long and so hard, that I had to write about it. I wrote about it again and again. I wrote a short story about a mother haunted by the ghost of her dead baby. I wrote Love. I wrote essays. It was only when I wrote it out enough that I felt like I could move on.

First of all, I really enjoyed the book. At the same time, I really had to fight the urge to dislike Emilia through a lot of it. What is your take on Emilia? If she were a real person, would she be in your inner circle of friends?

I love Emilia. I love her sass, I identify with her self-loathing and self-pity. I think the fact that she’s funny makes up for a myriad of flaws. At the same time, I can understand why people sometimes don’t like her. Hell, people don’t like ME and I think I’m pretty great.

I’d love to know how you came up with the idea for this story. What was the first spark? Your depiction of grieving a child and avoiding mothers with babies rings so true, I’d be interested to know how you acquired such a delicate touch of a subject which is very difficult to portray well.

I knew I wanted to write about a dead baby. And the story arrived in my head like a gift from somewhere outside my brain. I wrote the first draft in two weeks at a writer’s colony. I wrote so fast that I wore the fingerprints off my fingertips. It was the most incredible experience of my life. Flow, baby. It’s all about flow.

Emilia deals with the concept of bashert in this novel. Your love for your husband is well known. Do you feel like you and Michael are bashert?

Yes, I do. We were meant to be together — or at least we are so well-matched and in love that we might as well have been. But you know what? None of that matters. Life is HARD, marriage is harder and bashert only gets you through so much. You have to work at it. We work on our relationship and our family every day.

Since your husband is also a writer, do you find that it is easier (since he understands the ups and downs of a writing life) or more difficult to have the same career? How did you balance writing and children in those early days of babyhood?

I’d never have written if it weren’t for him. I was a very contented lawyer. He gave me the idea. I think it’s easy for us. I don’t try to compete — hell, he’s one of the greatest living writers. How could I ever hope to compete? We support each other. We love one another’s work. We’re each other’s best critique and best reader.

Look below if you’re here for the Barren Bitches Book Brigade and want to find the master list for Group A. Stay tuned tomorrow for the master list to Group B.