The Impermanence of Life: Things Can Disappear! A Book Discussion Group with Ileen Gottesfeld

Wednesdays April 10th, May 1st, May 22nd and June 12th at 10 am.  Stories about people who lose something that changes them forever.  Can these people endure in these four novels and become better versions of themselves? Or not?

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (Wednesday, April 10th at 10 am)

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? 

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Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano (Wednesday, May 1st at 10 am)

One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured veteran returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor.

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Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Wednesday, May 22nd at 10 am)

Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They're completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating.

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The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb (Wednesday, June 12th at 10 am)

Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music. 

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Books are available at the library 3 weeks before each meeting.

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This series is made possible in part by a grant from Humanities New York.