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♩ ♫ ♯ First Friday Book Club Meeting - September 4 2020 ♬ ♪ ♮♫

Greetings, First Friday Book Club members:


Our September 4 meeting gave us a chance to discuss Alexander Chee's "The Queen of the Night." And also to pose for another fabulous group photo, complete with our ever-present masks:  (We are all actually smiling...)

After thorough discussion, the group concluded: (a) The Second Empire period in French history = elaborate costumes, decorative spaces and melodramatic people (b) This book should have been edited (up to 100+ pages, possibly?) - although - none of us could figure out precisely how to do that.

[Opéra Garnier, Paris] A long piece of complicated escapism, "The Queen of the Night"contains enough story lines and real characters to make a nice multi-part Netflix series. Real people in the book include Pauline Viardot, Madame Verdi, the Countess, several famous tenors, Empress Eugenie, Emperor Louis, Verdi and Cora Pearl.  

So we agreed it was operatic, and cinematic, and probably too long - but still an impressive piece of research and story-telling. “A singer learned her roles for life. Your repertoire was a library of fates held close, like the gowns in this closet, yours until your voice failed.” “Why was there never an opera that ended with a soprano who was free?”

Our reading for October is Hank and Jim by Scott Eyman The alternate title is Goodbye to a River by John Graves

More later! Tami  Book club web page = First Friday Book Club Book club Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/FirstFridayBookClub

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