For the next meeting of our fiction book club, we will be reading Take What You Need by Idra Novey, which was named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, L.A. Times, Boston Globe, NPR, The Guardian Author Pick, and Today.
Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who’s sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she’s revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. But with Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind.
What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.
With great verve and humor, Idra Novey zeros in on the joys and difficulty of family, the ease with which we let distance mute conflict, and the power we can draw from creative pursuits.
We’ll be meeting on Thursday, May 2 at 5:30 PM at the bookstore to discuss. We have copies of the novel, in paperback, for sale at the store - and don’t forget to mention the book club for your 10% discount! As always, let us know when you can via email if you’re planning to attend.
