Thank you Judy Bell for hosting our meeting with a delicious Beef Stroganoff. As always, everyone shared wonderful items, including a yummy apple cake by our new member, Mary Spohnholtz. Welcome Mary! It is always a pleasure to gather and share our friendship.
Our read this month was "Disappearing Earth" by Julia Phillips. Julia received a 2011 Fulbright scholarship which she used to immerse herself in the culture of the Kamchatka peninsula, a former closed military zone. This crime story unfolds over a calendar year as "a means of exploring violence in women's lives, violence in many forms..." (quote from NPR). Esther was not able to attend our meeting but emailed her comments: "I found the book interesting and the connections between characters kept me going back to find how each was related. The people and traditions of the Russian province of Kamchatka are so different from our American experience, but the human relationships are common, if uncomfortable in one way or another. If I had to choose a likable character, it would be Denis whose fantastic obsession with UFO’s and belief in alien abduction was so frustrating to his sister. I appreciated the tenacity of the mothers who never gave up hope in their search. It was a dark read, and certainly the war in Ukraine is much much darker. I felt some insight into Russian life and mindset was gained." I found it noteworthy that Russians treated their indigenous culture in the same manner that America has treated ours.
Judy likes to display items from her collevtin which are reminiscent of our story or something from the story. These pieces are from her family's Eastern European travels.
