Manchester District Library Book Club discussion

Please share your thoughts

Im only on page 49 and I feel that I've spent a lot of time already enjoying this read. However, at page 49 I needed a break and collect my thoughts while I can still remember them. This author deserves my patience to get through this narrators life story. My curiosity overwhelms my ablitlity to predict the future of this human being.

Did Eugenides find this "quotation" somewhere or did he write it? He's describing the village they live in on the mountainside.
p35 "This lack of romantic possibility had created a vicious cycle. (I always thought it was circle!!) "No one to love: no love. No love: no babies. No babies: no one to love." Wow!
Then, after wearing the silk corset, folding it and putting it back into her hopechest, Desdemona sits in her chair, "thinking E. O. Wilson thoughts Was it love or reproduction? Chance or Destiny? Crime or nature at work?...."
Who is E. O. Wilson, I asked my phone? And what was Desdemona thinking?
In this youtube interview, E.O. Wilson sat down with The New York Times in 2008 to talk about his lifelong quest to explore and to protect the planet’s biodiversity. I thank any author that can introduce me to something I hadn't known. And so relevant to the story. It is the gift of a good writer!
https://www.nytimes.com/video/obituar...

This book has been on my to-read list for a long time. I even own a copy, given to me as a gift, but I didn't pick it up and set my mind to reading it until it was chosen for my library's adult book discussion. I enjoyed it, for the most part. I like that it was set in Detroit since I was familiar with many of the locations mentioned. The story was quite original and the writing is wonderful. It includes some cringeworthy topics. I have no problem with the lead character, Cal, but the grandparents nearly made be put the book down and many of the things Cal goes through are difficult to read. It might have been a 5 star but I didn't have any trouble putting it down and often had to talk myself into picking it up again. One of the reasons I continued on was curiosity about what Cal's brother's real name is. It turns out the author never reveals his given name. https://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/...