Valerie Laken, Author of Dream House on Reading in Secret and Her Dream Book Club

Today I'm so happy to welcome Valerie Laken, author of the novel Dream House, which is just out in paperback. In her riveting debut novel, Pushcart Prize-winning Laken tells the story of one troubled house—the site of a domestic drama that will forever change the lives of two families. Embracing volatile issues such as race, class, and gentrification, while seamlessly mixing genres as diverse as crime fiction, suspense, and home renovation, Dream House has been called a “sexy, sharp-eyed, deeply haunted, [and] wonderful book” by Charles Baxter, author of the National Book Award finalist The Feast of Love.

Today Laken talks about growing up reading in secret, the lure of libraries and her ideal book club. Which led me to wonder, what would my ideal book club look like? Actually, I think it would be pretty close to the one that I have, so I feel lucky, but I am drawn to her idea of a multigenerational group. Think about what your dream book club would look like--it can be the one you're in now, or one you wish to be in. Post a comment about it and I'll choose one random winner from all the comments received by midnight Friday February 5th to win a copy of Dream House.

I grew up in the days before book clubs, in a town where people talked about trucks, not books, in a house that had a lot of nice stuff, but not very many bound pages with words on them. There were four built-in book shelves in our family room that my mother — a reluctant decorator, suspicious of trinkets — seemed to regard as a personal trial.

Over the years, the shelves filled up somehow, in the way that any storage device will fill up. The top shelf went to her prized collection of model horses from childhood. On the two lower shelves books with functions accumulated: tax books, textbooks, Dale Carneggie’s self-help, and one untouched copy of our lone parenting book — whose cover featured a naked woman breastfeeding, horrifying me. There were some books my sister had made in grade school, a big falling-apart dictionary, and squeezed in there somewhere, my parents’ lone novel: a ragged copy of The Marathon Man, with Dustin Hoffman on the cover.

But the pièce de résistance, the thing my mom polished and beamed over and would jump up from the dinner table to consult, was a generic red encyclopedia set that she got for free at our grocery store, one volume per week with each cart of groceries. (We never got F, though. We were on vacation the week of F.)

The remaining shelf, just under the horses and out of our reach, held the most mysterious volumes: old yearbooks and photo albums showing impossible things like my mother in a bikini on a beach before I knew her, looking more carefree than she had ever seemed in my presence. She was a cheerful, intensely efficient mother of four girls born almost all in a row. She tutored high schoolers and helped run my dad’s business and kept the house as clean and uncluttered as a hotel room. Books, we gathered, were made for idle people, and idle people were not much championed in our house.

Still, as a former math teacher she understood the value of books, at least in the abstract. She read to us when we were little and let us order one book each whenever the Scholastic Books catalog showed up at school – which was more than a lot of parents did. And every Friday she took us all the way downtown to the Rockford Public Library. This was in the days before anyone much talked about child predators, so we were allowed to roam the entire four floors on our own. There were window nooks to curl into, footstools to kick around and climb on, and stacks of books that towered above us and hid us.

There was a silence you just don’t find in a house with four kids. Best of all: inside those walls everyone was a reader. An unashamed, out-of-the-closet reader. This was my first inkling of a book club, my first assurance that I was not alone.

In fact, one of my sisters was (and remains) an avid reader, but like me she tended to do it in secret. Under covers, behind armchairs, in the back part of the basement. It wasn’t that anyone would scold us or stop us; I’m not sure why we hid our habit. Maybe because reading in the presence of nonreaders is like bringing a skeptic to church. Sure, it might be a good idea, but somehow it strains that slender bridge that carries you from your real world to the other.

As we got older, that sister and I passed books back and forth, reporting on our findings and favorites, while my other two sisters built lives more productive, more normal. I sought out other readers, those deviants lurking in libraries, English classes and bookstores, but I never could quite shake my habit of reading in secret. Even talking about books I love feels dangerous, makes me anxious and tongue-tied. The fact that I teach English has not in the least resolved this.

But still, I have a fantasy about finding a book club in which my anxieties fall away: there’d be good snacks and a good view and a good deal of wine, and no one would mind if you showed up in your sweat pants, possibly even unshowered. There’d be two or three generations on hand, male and female, each with a ravaged copy of a great new book and no fear of having to sound smart when they talked about it. There would be so many of us that we would crowd the room and line up out the door till we were all filled with the temporary conviction that everyone in the world was like us. These, the great idle dreamers, the people who lounge for hours with books, lost to this world and committed to the other. That’s my club.

Comments

[Melissa C]

My dream book club would simply be one where the members were invested in the group. I have yet to find one here in my new state in four years where this was the case. They all seem to peter out rather quickly for one reason or another.

[Lori Barnes]

My dream book club would be where everyone came in pajamas, brought a appetizer dish, and 5 books each to swap of different gentries, after the book discussion we could place all the books on a table and draw names and each person would pick a book untill they were gone and for our drink we could have bahama mama's : )
photoquest(at)bellsouth(dot)net

[Terri van Gulik]

My dream book club would be in my dream book store. (When I win the lottery I will open it) A fireplace with a circle of cozy wing chairs, hot tea and coffee, cookies, and a group of fellow book lovers. Tables with piles of books, and shelves galore.

[Laura]

My current book club meets almost all the requirements of my dream book club. We always have great food and great conversation. There's a good mix of talk about the book and talk about our lives. We aren't too serious and welcome members who were too busy to read the book. I guess the only thing that would make it better would be to make sure we would never have a member miss because she can't get child care.

[Trace]

My dream book club would have me a) flying the members to the places mentioned in the books, b)taking them in my time machine so we can feel what that time period was like or will be like and c) having a chef create the meals so we get all a book can give us.

[Rebecca Morgan]

My dream book club is pretty close to the one that I created with three friends two years ago. There are seven of us and we are all within a couple years of the same age. While you would get a range of perspective from women of varying ages, the benefit of our group is that we are growing up together and learning from each other as we go.

[Lindsey]

My dream book club would be one in which everyone actually carries through with reading the books and showing up at the meetings. It's no fun once people start giving up.

[Sarah Keery]

My ideal book club would be held in an old fashioned reading room with bug, comfy chairs, friends who were dedicated to books, and a hunky guy wearing only an apron serving hot chocolate and marshmallows.

[Lisa]

I'm finding that I'm pretty lucky in so far as book clubs are concerned--the first one that I joined made some changes almost as soon as I joined that made it work for me. We are a group of diverse women (from grandmas to young moms; from all parts of the country). Some of us are more avid readers than others but all are intelligent and participate. We always have lots of great food, plenty of wine and, while we don't show up in our pajamas, we are pretty casual. We make sure to spend a part of the night talking about the book but also make sure there's plenty of time just to chat. I look forward to it every month.

[Kay]

How does special tea, sandwiches and a different flavor jelly bean each month sound? Oh yes, also a craft usually tied into a book theme, with bring your favorite book read that month and talk away!
My daughter started a bookclub with an "All Books Tea" when she was 9 years old and are still meeting monthly three year later.
At the first meeting the named themselves "Sunshine Fairy Readers"
She will be 12 in May. 6 of the original 12 members still attend.
Members come and go, bringing a friend interested in reading is always encouraged along with anything they have written themselves.

The groups goal -- To expose members to new great books to read.
Range of books have been from classics to modern fiction, graphic novels and plays.

Only rule - You can only bring one book of a series. Then move on:)

Moral: Books, Food, Friends, Fabulous activity, Fun.
She is my inspiration!

[Beth F]

I was lucky -- reading was and still is important to both my parents. Books were everywhere in out house and everyone read. The only secret reading we did was under the covers with a flashlight when we were supposed to be sleeping. When we got caught at it, there was no real punishment.

Anyway, my ideal book club is similar: men and women from age 18/21 on up. Great food, plenty of wine, great books, intelligent conversation, casual, with someone else to cook and clean up.

I am in a terrific Skype book club but would love to find a group for face-to-face discussion.

The reviews for Dream House have me interested!

[Amanda]

I love this post! It's funny because her growing up story is so different from mine. My parents had SO many bookshelves crammed with books (mostly the boring kinds, child-rearing and engineering) but still.

I love her ideal book club. That sounds like mine to. I totally love the idea of a ton of wine, multi-generation and of both gender. I love diversity.

Thanks for the post!

[Jenn Petito]

I belong to my ideal book club. Everyone brings wine and some kind of snack - we usually meet by the pool in the summer or the fire in the winter at different members houses. Even if one didnt read the book or read a different one we all respect each others opinions. We are all in different stages in our lives - some with small children and others who children are getting married and having grandchildren.

[Barbara]

my group is "perfect" but I would like to add another dimension to it-- every month the author meets the group at the location and period of the book (yes, time travel) and discusses his/her work with us while sipping and eating the speciality of the region and period!
that's my dream book club!Thanks.

[melanie]

My book group is pretty awesome - we talk about books while we knit, spin, or crochet. Right now we're in quite a Tudor mode, in fact! The only thing that would really make it better would be Panera reserving its private room for us every week, and being able to have a chat session with the author!

I'd love to read Dream House -- thanks!

[Bethany]

I love my book club! The only problem is that there seem to be a small core of members and an ever-rotating outer wing of newcomers. We've only been going for a year, so I hope some of them find the time to stay. I do wish, however, that we consumed more wine together!!!

Dream House sounds like an interesting subject for an upcoming month...

www(dot)spokanebookgroup(dot)blogspot(dot)com

[Kate]

Valerie's description of her ideal book club and some of the above posts sound excellent to me. But at this point, my only desire in my dream book club is that it be a democracy where everyone gets a say in which books we read or a turn to pick a book, and everyone is respectful of other people's opinions. It's sad but true that my current book club does not contain these elements.