My First Book Club Meeting

     I've had the pleasure of attending my first book club meeting to discuss my novel, The Sanctity Of Love And War.  Previously, I've experienced being a member of a book club as a reader, but to be present to discuss a book that I'd written was an infinitely different experience.  From the onset, the discussion was generally about how I had come to write the book.  Most notably, the readers were inquiring about the origin of various characters and how a writer in the present day could write from the perspective of a time in which she hadn't lived or experienced.  I've written in previous blog posts the answers to those questions.  In this post, I'll therefore choose instead to write about the discussion that came about when we considered some of the choices the characters -- most notably Piper -- made throughout the book.  Finally, I'll end the blog discussing the conversation that occurred around the title of the book.
     One reader in particular questioned one of the decisions Piper made as she attempted to overcome one of the consequences of war.  As the author, the question was put to me about why I had chosen to have Piper make some of the choices she made.  I explained that when I was writing this novel, I felt some of the decisions were dictated by the characters themselves.  In this explanation, I felt I was guided by each character's attributes and temperment.  As I wrote Piper, I came to know her more and more.  I explained to the readers of this group that while I am the author of the book, during many times in the writing of the novel, it felt that the characters had more say in what they said and did than even I -- the one ultimately in control of their fate.  It's an interesting statement but one I discovered more steeped in truth than mere conjecture.  I too found myself disagreeing at times with the decisions the characters made.  As a writer, I found my instincts about the characters dictating more and more how they behaved.  Ultimately, as readers (and writers), we don't need to agree with characters decisions in order to understand or sympathize with them in the end.
     When the group came to the debate the meaning behind the title, The Sanctity Of Love And War, the readers were interested in hearing from me about what I was thinking when I settled upon the title.  I felt that was an interesting way to pose the question as, the title and Foreward were the last things settled upon by me as the writer.  The book, in many ways, is a spiritual commentary on how individuals and humanity as a whole get through loss as an outcome of war.  As the back of the book states, "The Sanctity Of Love And War is a story of the redemptive qualities of love as it attempts to overcome the harsh realities of war".  As the individuals learn to make peace with what they experience during the war as a result of compassion of and connection to others (and the world around them) they learn that there is something sacred in that truth.  It is because of the war that they are given the opportunities to find ultimate peace.  It may be that this is a concept that is a difficult one to understand and connect to, but as I wrote in the Author's Notes, the initial writing of this book was my attempt to make sense of such weighty questions.  And as I wrote in the first blog post, I do not speak from any lofty position.  I am not nearly as evolved as characters like Piper and Bo ultimately turn out to be.  Whether one agrees with the possibility that the word sanctity could be ascribed to the word war can certainly be debated as it was in this book club meeting.  After all, aren't all good debates worth the discussion?
     I want to thank again Cathy, Frannie, Jo-Ann, Alice, and Ann Marie for the enlightened discussion of the book.  As a writer and a reader, it was certainly a positively wonderful and appreciated experience.