The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake report

Well well, hello ladies, this is Heather M. filling in for Dawn, reporting live from my cozy living room here in little ol' MLT.








It seems a combination of a new venue, a different weekday and a strange book selection converged on the second Wednesday of the month,this June 13, to bring about a small but dedicated gathering of our book club this time. After a small key snafu, we gathered in our new space in the basement of the Bethesda Lutheran church at 6:50 to talk about The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. 

In attendance were: Dawn, our fearless leader, who had another library commitment that particular night (she still is in search of teen reading mentors for her program, know anyone?) but left with a care package of food, Katie S. who brought rare roast beast with horseradish, Lara who whipped up a fruit salad, Karen who made butterscotch pudding with caramel/cone cookies cut into triangles, my daughter Brenna Conwell who made her first cake all by herself-lemony bundt with lemony glaze, and myself who brought a quiche.

 If you read the book, I think you will agree that is was the "weirdest" one so far. Comments ranged from "Why didn't the author explain more about why and how" to "Did it seem to anyone that Joseph might have had Aspergers?" and finally "Why did he like being his grandmother's chair so much?" We all thought that George was the most likable character, but wondered why he became friends with Joe and his sister.

Questions abounded like; why did her gift of tasting start at 9?, why didn't her parents catch on earlier? (especially when it was revealed late in the book that grandpa could smell emotions), was it a genetic thing? and why did grandma constantly send inanimate objects in the mail? We will never know those answers. It was agreed that her style of writing was interesting, especially liked was her habit of utilizing analogies to categorize family members i.e. "Joe is like the dessert, he only needs air, you are like the rain forest, you need lots of water, I'm like the big island of Hawaii, with 12 different climate zones."

So in closing, the general consensus was that it was CREEPY that Joe became a chair, (with that particular passage even to strange for me to read outloud) but liked was the chapter of the romantic and tender way the dad roped in the mom with the velvet footstool gambit. A couple of us wondered out loud if all her writing is this way, maybe one day someone will find out and report back.

Also voiced was the new space and what a good vibe it had, with a huge kitchen containing all the dishes we needed and an industrial dishwasher the speed of light!

Next month we'll be reading Roald Dahl's best known work of literature, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory something we have all watched but probably haven't read. Looking forward to German food, tv dinners, blueberry pie and candy, lots of candy! Everlasting gobstopper anyone?????