On Reading and Writing

by Leslie Budewitz
Author of Death al Dente



Leave a comment this weekend to enter the drawing for a free copy of Death al Dente!

For nearly twenty years, I’ve belonged to a monthly book club. Stephen King says if you want to write, you’ve got to read. While I won’t add, “so join a book club,” being part of one has made me a better writer. Why? It’s made me a better reader.

In my first group—started by two couples and still buzzing after thirty-plus years—members chose books by consensus. Alas, I moved. In my current group, the hostess makes the choice. I argued for consensus when we formed, wanting to have a voice in what we chose. Turns out both methods work equally well. Both groups have brought books into my life that I might not have found on my own. When serious readers band together, it’s inevitable that tastes differ, as do sources for recommendations and reasons for choosing a book. Some members audition books, to make sure they’re choosing one they really want to share. Others are less particular, knowing the interaction adds to the experience.

Would we have read Wicked by Gregory Maguire if Jean’s daughter-in-law hadn’t raved about it? Probably not—but then, we’d have missed a seriously weird-ass book and an evening of green food. We would not have read Montana Women, the story of two sisters in the 1950s, if author Toni Volk had not rented Pauline’s guest house.

Joan loves rereading classics: Madame Bovary, Catcher in the Rye, and Willa Cather’s My Mortal Enemy. Others approach them with trepidation, not wanting to sully the memory of our “first time.” Consider Catcher in the Rye—neither story nor voice is as appealing to an adult reader as to a fifteen-year-old discovering it for the first time and realizing they are not alone in their fears and anxieties.

My own choices have not always been hits: One member reads the popular Montana writer Ivan Doig reluctantly, and groaned when I chose his first book, This House of Sky, a memoir of his sheep-ranching boyhood. I wanted to reread it while working on a historical novel (still unfinished) set in central Montana, to immerse myself in that land. Several members grew up in Montana in the same decades as Doig, and I loved hearing their stories when we gathered. Earlier this year, another member chose Doig’s latest, The Bartender’s Tale, and the reluctant reader admitted enjoying it. It tops my list so far this year. It reminded me, as did The Whistling Season, that some writers simply aren’t convincing storytellers when they stray from their natural subject matter. Doig is at his best in the voice of a young boy verging on adolescence, discovering family secrets, and beginning to see the world in a new light.

Some readers have a higher tolerance for challenging books than others: Arvind Adiga’s satirical novel, The White Tiger, upset one reader who thought it a harsh and unfair portrayal of modern India. Jennifer Egan’s Goon Squad, Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair, and José Saramago’s Death with Interruptions delighted some and baffled others. My choice of Toni Morrison’s The Mercy forced me to be creative with the food for the evening—no theme dinner opportunities—and to explain why I so admired a book about such a difficult subject: the varieties of slavery in early America. (I’ve read it three times.) And when we discussed my choice of Aimee Bender’s The Peculiar Sadness of Lemon Cake, we had a lively debate about the boundaries of the senses—over lemon tart.

It’s been a gift to meet unfamiliar books: the richly exotic Silk by Allesandro Baracci, The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton, and the delicious The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak. (Talk about theme food options!) And popular books I might have skipped: the haunting A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini, the fast-paced evocation of the 1930s, The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, and the delightful but poignant The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Schaeffer and Annie Burrows.

Occasionally, we’ve all loved the book—which can shorten discussion, although a social or political issue may spark conversations beyond the page: Jamie Ford’s Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet prompted a discussion of the treatment of Chinese and Japanese Americans during “the war,” as well as “the road not taken.” For me, it prompted thoughts of a landscape destroyed by progress—my work in progress is set in Seattle, as is Ford’s book, and the area where his characters lived is vastly changed, much of it lost first to industrialization and now to professional sports arenas. I think of those characters as I write, wanting to keep in my mind the influence of their lives and experiences on the city and its current residents.

The best discussion ever has to have been of the one book we all hated, A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goldrick. I felt badly for Peggy, our newest member at the time: her first choice had been unavailable, so she settled for a bookseller’s last-minute recommendation. But we laughed so hard—and her coconut cake was so good—that the book quickly became beside the point.

Like many writers, I keep a notebook filled with observations on everything I read, noting what works for me and what doesn’t, phrases I like, things I’d do differently. It’s richer because I spend an evening a month with women who love to read and to cook, and who encourage me as a writer. So, to paraphrase Stephen King, if you want to write, join a book club!


Leave a comment this weekend to enter the drawing for a free copy of Death al Dente!
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Death al Dente, first in the Food Lovers' Village Mysteries, debuted from Berkley Prime Crime on August 6. The series is set in a small, lakeside resort community in Northwest Montana, on the road to Glacier Park, near where author Leslie Budewitz lives. Leslie is also a lawyer. Her first book, Books, Crooks & Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law & Courtroom Procedure (Quill Driver Books) won the 2011 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction. Visit her at http://www.LeslieBudewitz.com.