June's meeting was the first to be held in our new home at The Aletaster in a long while. After a one-meeting hiatus in July when the pub is being refurbished, we will look forward to regularly seeing each other in the back room and discussing books.
Rene Denfeld's The Enchanted was quite different to the types of book we often read here at Low Fell Book Group, but was generally well-received by all those who completed it. Set on death row and written from varying perspectives, the author tackled the subject matter and narratives in a clever and revealing way.
There was a certain other worldliness to the book, which was highly appropriate when you think of the prisoners being disconnected with society. This was created through a number of techniques, including keeping names hidden, which Lynda thought was particularly well used.
The character of the young blonde boy caught the interest of many members of the group and Ruth was pleased when he managed to escape his situation. She liked the way that he then thought about only having 20 months left and that they could be counted as 20 moons.
One of the things that we all were intrigued by was the mention of the horses running and the men with little hammers. Some of the group immediately linked these instances with the location of the prison near the San Andreas fault line, but others connected them to the inmates' state of mind and the rising tension around execution times.
For me, the real crux of the book was the idea as to whether the lady should try to save York or not, considering he expressly said he didn't want to be spared execution. It was a situation that brought in the ideas of duty, doing one's job, moral obligations and taking individuals' wishes into consideration.
We gave The Enchanted 4 stars out of 5
The next meeting will be on July 4th, when we'll be reading The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
