(Book #27) Marcia hosted this gathering outdoors in her lovely backyard and we added a new member! Melissa invited Susan to join us and we were happy to have her with us. It was quite a coincidence to realize that Marcia had previously bumped into Susan in her business life before tonight’s book club meeting. Just as we lost one and gained one in June, we did the same in July. Rosemary will be taking a leave of absence as her daughter starts the college process.
Marcia started us with a lovely salad but the show stopper was the gumbo. It was fantastic. For dessert we had Louisiana crunch cake with berries and ice cream.
Most of us agreed that we were glad to have read the book even though parts of it were hard to bear. Much of our discussion focused on the reasons for the friendship betweem Lizzie and Mawu and the eventual betrayal — the rationale for their actions — their bonds as women, slaves and mistresses. We were all so intrigued and more than a little disgusted to learn that there was such a place where white plantation owners vacationed with their black mistresses — and we all hoped we would have been brave enough to be like the character Glory.