{"id":72510,"date":"2014-06-11T15:16:30","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T19:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=72510"},"modified":"2014-06-11T15:16:30","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T19:16:30","slug":"notes-on-a-successful-book-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/11\/notes-on-a-successful-book-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes on a Successful Book Club"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"91ys8nWJGvL\"<\/a>

Detail from the first-edition hardcover jacket of Judith Rossner\u2019s Looking for Mr. Goodbar<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Back when I worked in retail, a friend and I whiled away our breaks and slow days with what we called, unofficially, the Lurid Book Club. Admissions standards were straightforward: to be considered, a book had to be lurid. Accordingly, we read Flowers in the Attic<\/em>, Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor\u2019s Story of Life and Death in the People\u2019s Temple<\/em>, Peyton Place<\/em>,<\/em> Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children<\/em>, and Escape<\/em>, described by its publisher as \u201cthe dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman\u2019s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.\u201d (We told a customer about the LBC and she contributed her copy of Anne Rice\u2019s Claiming of Sleeping Beauty<\/em>, which, besides being not at all what the book club was about, was tedious in the extreme.)<\/p>\n

Unlike many book clubs, it was an unqualified success. It was impossible to not do the reading: we could not put these books down. But the social element was essential, too; the shared horror of the experience made it bearable. I can\u2019t call it a guilty pleasure, because it wasn\u2019t exactly pleasurable. I\u2019m sure this plays into something dark in the human soul\u2014or at least mine. But it was cathartic and educational. I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n

If you should start your own Lurid Book Club, may I suggest the oeuvre of Judith Rossner? She\u2019s best known for Looking for Mr. Goodbar<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>the 1975 novel (and subsequent film) that fictionalized the brutal murder of Roseann Quinn. This story\u2014with its seedy singles-bar settings, its teacher-of-deaf-children-by-day, rough-sex-addict-by-night protagonist, and its violent denouement\u2014is quite lurid enough. But that\u2019s just for starters. <\/p>\n

I ran across Rossner\u2019s Any Minute I Can Split<\/em> (about a woman who joins a commune) far too young, and after that I devoured August<\/em> (about a troubled woman\u2019s relationship with her equally troubled therapist) because my grandparents for some reason had both of them. On the subject of two of her other novels, I can do no better than Wikipedia:<\/p>\n

\n

In 1977, Rossner published Attachments<\/em>, a story about a pair of friends who marry conjoined twins. Attachments<\/em> was followed by Emmeline<\/em>, the story of a fourteen-year-old farm girl who gets a factory job to support her impoverished family, is seduced and bears a child taken from her, whom unbeknownst to her she marries two decades later.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Essential, I would argue, to any comprehensive LBC syllabus. If your tastes run to the classics, I would also recommend Leave Her to Heaven<\/em>,<\/em> The Best of Everything<\/em>, and, of course, the entire Jacqueline Susann catalogue.<\/p>\n

I miss the Lurid Book Club\u2014maybe it\u2019s time to revive it. So many potential titles continue to beckon: In Bed with Gore Vidal<\/em>; Jay\u2019s Journal; Driving the Saudis: A Chauffeur\u2019s Tale of the World\u2019s Richest Princesses (plus their servants, nannies, and one royal hairdresser)<\/em>. Yes, there are better books in the world, books that I need and want to read. But to borrow from of Valley of the Dolls<\/em>, \u201cNever judge anyone by another\u2019s opinions. We all have different sides that we show to different people.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back when I worked in retail, a friend and I whiled away our breaks and slow days with what we called, unofficially, the Lurid Book Club. Admissions standards were straightforward: to be considered, a book had to be lurid. Accordingly, we read Flowers in the Attic, Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor\u2019s Story of Life and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[14262,14266,14263,14265,14264],"class_list":["post-72510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-judith-rossner","tag-looking-for-mr-goodbar","tag-lurid-books","tag-the-valley-of-the-dolls","tag-trashy-books"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNotes on a Successful Book Club by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"June 11, 2014 \u2013 Back when I worked in retail, a friend and I whiled away our breaks and slow days with what we called, unofficially, the Lurid Book Club. 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