The Whitney Book Bistro will be joining with our Social Justice Book Club on October 8th to discuss R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface. On the second Monday of each month, Whitney’s Social Justice Book Club meets to discuss books “written by and reflecting people from historically marginalized groups. Books focus on issues such as racial and gender justice, income inequality and poverty, criminal justice reform and more.” The Whitney Book Bistro group meets on the second Tuesday of each month to discuss a book in a variety of genres and subjects. Whether the selected books are well-loved, uplifting, offensive, educational, or simply entertaining, we read and discuss books as an exercise for the brain as well as to socialize and create a community with shared experiences through books. Book Bistro members often comment that they appreciate the opportunity to read things they might not otherwise even consider. Social justice can often be an unsurprising element of our discussions as we note stock characterizations, lack of diversity, economics, and our own limited perspectives. 

The Book Bistro discussions generally start with our first impressions – whether we loved or hated a book, what impressed or impacted us the most. Often, many of the standard discussion points on a book will be covered quite organically. We only refer to prepared questions if the discussion stalls or when we have time and want to delve deeper. Something seemingly simple, such as “Why the title?”, can bring out nuances we might otherwise miss. During our discussion of Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, a couple of readers were disappointed in the book because they had happily expected to read and learn about an adventure along the Lincoln Highway. Violence, sex, drugs, identity: expectations of a book make a difference. How will discussing a book entirely through a social justice lens change the reading and discussing experience?

In a New York Times review by Alexandra Alter, author R.F. Kuang is quoted as saying, “I hate the feeling of being read just because somebody’s trying to tick off a diversity check box.”^[i] As the moderator of a library book club, I have a diversity check box. I am required to make sure we read at least four DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) selections each year. I have never needed such a requirement, but finding books of substance in a variety of genres, with a lot of copies in large print and audio, by diverse authors from marginalized groups, is not always easy. In addition, reading can be quite traumatic, not only triggering for some but off-putting. If you want to educate, you do need the selected audience to be able to stay the course – otherwise you are preaching only to the choir. You need to know your audience and your purpose. As book club members have made it clear, they like to be educated and entertained. Perhaps in a perfect world, we would not know the race of the author of a book; but in a perfect world, would we be concerned with social justice? 

As Yellowface showcases, popular, best-seller books are made by the publishing industry and, I guess, gullible readers. As a white reader, how do I know if a book has been white-washed by an editor? Perhaps even worse, what if I never read and learn about something important and impactful because I couldn’t palate it. What if, because of my subconscious bias and racism, I use phrases that will prejudice people against me?  Reading the books makes it possible for us to learn and grow and change. Discussing the book with others makes us vulnerable. I admire everyone for coming out to our book clubs, for challenging themselves and others to think, and look, and feel a little differently, to share opinions in a safe environment. That, I believe, will lead to more social justice.

So what did I think about Yellowface? When I read a book, I am always concerned about authority and believability, even with fantasy. I have been told by a member who is an author that she was totally engaged by the accuracy of the publishing and social media experience depicted in Yellowface. How many of us understand that big publishers actually buy the spaces that showcase their books on bookstore shelves, let alone buy reviews, interviews, and popup ads? I found the book to be easy to read but the narrator was so unreliable and unlikeable that reading became an exercise in finding social-justice keywords and phrases. We all think and feel things that are politically incorrect, so I couldn’t help but worry about the vulnerability of discussing this with people you don’t know. I was reminded of the buzz at the library in 2022 when James Patterson was lambasted for claiming that older white men were facing a form of racism. ^[ii] I was driven to look up some of R.F. Kuang’s other works and interviews.^[iii] In the end, I wished the story had been told through the eyes and experiences of a side character, Candice. I still don’t understand why the thieving author would have refused a sensitivity reader. That seemed contrived. I am looking forward to the discussion and all the new thoughts and understanding that will bring.

^[i] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/12/books/yellowface-rf-kuang.html

^[ii] “Gina Denny, an associate editor at the publisher TouchPoint Press, noted that when USA Today reported on Patterson’s comments, just nine authors on the newspaper’s list of 150 bestsellers were non-White writers. Three of Patterson’s titles made the list, while just five women of color and four men of color were on the bestseller list. The rest were made up of White men between the ages of 36 and 84, Denny said — and some of the White males on the list have long been dead.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/06/14/james-patterson-white-male-writers-racism/

^[iii] R.F. Kuang on White Paranoia and the Pitfalls of Identity Politics. An interview between R.F. Huang and  Zakiya Dalila Harris, author of The Other Black Girl. May 2, 2023. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/literature/r-f-kuang-on-plagiarism-and-the-pitfalls-of-identity-politics

Only seven of us met to discuss Louise Erdrich’s The Sentence. We have previously discussed three of her books:  Round House, La Rose, and The Night Watchman. Her books are usually well-liked because, although they include difficult topics and realities, they are also sensitive, informative, accepting, and easy to read. From the first chapter, I could tell the book would be different. I wonder if our lower-than-usual turnout was due to the book, the presidential debate, or just the tides of life.

Our first responder liked the book, but thought it was hard – hard to relive the trials of The Pandemic and George Floyd. He loved finding new words: “carceral,” “swales,” “Gadsden flag,” “arborvitae,” and at least one other I missed. Others chimed in about reading with a dictionary or moving on. One of us didn’t like the book at first, finding the sentences too disjointed and hard to follow. Eventually she started to care about the characters. She doesn’t believe in ghosts, so she had to consider that part of the book science fiction. She learned a lot more about the impact of the George Floyd murder. Another member said that the author was really good at bringing immediacy to the situation. That member appreciated the different styles – sardonic, almost comic, then serious. She loved the book and will read all of Erdrich’s books now. Still another was disappointed. Although he usually enjoys and recommends Erdrich’s books, he was not interested in George Floyd or the ghost. Louise Erdrich said in an interview[i] that this is the first book she has written that takes place in real time and it was very difficult to write.

We also wondered how much of the story is autobiographical.  The name of the bookstore is never mentioned in the book, although the author owns Birchbark books in Minneapolis, which looks in real life much as the bookstore in the novel is described. And the novel’s bookstore owner is named Louise. One of us wondered if Tookie’s former drug use had anything to do with her believing in Flora’s ghost. Another admitted to having used drugs in his youth but does not see ghosts; the ghost was, however, his favorite part of the story and he wanted more. Several of us felt that too many other people in the story also saw evidence of the ghost, making it most likely real. I wondered how much of the story is magic realism, describing and experiencing things in a way that explains how we feel about situations rather than meaning it to be absolute truth.[ii] Still, a couple of us took the ghost at face value – not as magic realism.

Tookie definitely changed during the course of the novel. She softened and became more self-aware, self-accepting. The baby was the turning point. Pollux obviously loved Tookie, but when the baby loved her, when Hetta loved her, Tookie could feel worthy. One of us noted that a baby in his church has transformed their worship service. Connections abound: Someone reminded us that the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate was the governor of Minnesota during the George Floyd riots. Another of us remembered that Desert Springs Hospital also had cots in their garage during the COVID pandemic. In the Las Vegas Sun on our meeting day’s newspaper, an article discussed a probe of possible agent orange use as a cause of rampant illness and cancer plaguing a reservation in Nevada. [iii]

Except for one us, the book was not a favorite. I did not finish reading it this month. I had trouble staying engaged even as I appreciated the construction, the poetry, the possibilities. The Sentence is not a book to be skimmed. I hope I will have a chance to read it again. The novel’s main character takes language very seriously and even considers that it was a sentence that killed her most annoying customer. Before I read the first paragraph of this book, I would have defined the word sentence as a collection of words put together to communicate something more complex than an individual word can convey. However, the first definition in my 40+ years-old dictionary is “a decision or judgment, as of a court.” Why are these two meanings connected? We did not discuss this! As usual, though, the discussion can continue. Here. At the library. At home. With sentences.

• OTHER WORKS DISCUSSED:
• A Gentleman in Moscow (2024) Television miniseries (based on the book by last-month’s author Amor Towles).
• Grimm (2011) Television series
• Ceremony (1977)  by  Leslie Marmon Silko
• House Made of Dawn (1968) by N. Scott Momaday
• The Indian Lawyer (1990) by James Welch
• Through the years we have read five books on Tookie’s list: There There by Tommy Orange, The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, Exhalation by Ted Chiang, The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston,

[i]  PBS NewsHour: Louise Erdrich’s ‘The Sentence’ explores racial tensions in a divided Minneapolis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El9r9wCmyss   Web-accessed 9/12/2024.

[ii] I am not sure I stated my meaning so clearly during the meeting! I also made a connection with the 2011 television series Grimm, which posits a world in which some people manifest animalistic behaviors as werepeople (think: werewolf), reflecting every fairytale and legend you can imagine! It is a pretty violent show, but my family has been watching and at least one of us has started to identify people in the real world as their were-counterpart.

[iii] This is the online link to the article: https://lasvegassun.com/news/2024/sep/10/a-remote-tribe-is-reeling-from-widespread-illness/