“Let’s read this new author, Elizabeth Strout, I’ve heard so much about,” suggested Mary to our book group soon after we’d formed in 1998. Mary’s literary taste was refined, and we often embraced her suggestions. “What’s the book called, and what’s it about?” we asked.
“Amy and Isabelle, and it tells the story of 16-year-old Amy and her strained relationship with Isabelle, her mother. Amy falls in love with her math substitute teacher, who finds her beautiful and tells her she looks like a poet,” explained Mary. We loved Strout’s spare language and her affection for her characters, no matter how flawed.
When the book was published, we were seven women with teenage or young adult daughters and sons. Six of us were psychotherapists. The themes of mother-daughter tension, mutual intolerance and occasional pitched battles were common terrain for us.
We read an eclectic selection of fiction and nonfiction. We loved Zadie Smith’s “White Teeth,” “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro, and “I Feel Bad About My Neck” by Nora Ephron. When we discussed Ephron’s essay collection, we laughed and covered our necks with both hands or scarves wrapped twice around.
By then, we were in our 50s, and aging mattered. We waited for another Strout novel while enjoying lively conversations about the chosen book of the month. Each person hosted a Friday afternoon gathering in her living room, accompanied by tea, coffee, cheeses, crackers and homemade chocolate c.
