Potluck Dinner: What We Thought of The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

Both Holmes Public Library adult book clubs, Evening and Afternoon Readers, combined to enjoy a pot luck supper in February after being interrupted by a January snow storm. A hearty winter’s meal was served buffet style and included macaroni and cheese, vegetable lasagna, chili, tortellini soup, spinach quiche, chicken pot pie, calzones, sausage peppers and onion casserole, chili pot pie, pie tortellini salad, corn bread, grapes and assorted artisan breads. A sparkling sunny winter punch added color to the menu.

After the main course all adjourned to the Library’s reading room for a book discussion accompanied by dessert. A spectacular book club-themed, decorated cake dominated the dessert table along with two different kinds of frosted cupcakes, apricot squares, decorated chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, along with candy and water bottles wrapped in book club-themed wrappers.

The centerpiece of the dessert table featured titles read by the combined groups.

The Age of Miracles generated intense discussion among book club members. It was obvious from the start that this book, liked or not, created a lot of thought-provoking reactions to the characters, as well as to the theme of the earth’s rotation slowing down. The group was divided about whether the story stayed true to an adolescent point of view of the catastrophe or was more realistically an adult memoir about the end of life as we (adults) knew it. It was noted that the book was originally targeted for a teen audience but was picked up by adult readers due to the complexity of the story. There was more to say about the fate of Julia as an adult, and many believed that a sequel will be written to talk more about the intervening years of the slowing.

A Sip of Winter Sun punch (minus the tequila)

Readers commented that this book made them more aware of daylight and the time of day, and think seriously about how they would react personally to situations created by the slowing. There was some discussion of how accurately time could be measured due to the slowing; is Julia really 23 years old? Which is better for individuals to adapt to society, clock time or real time? Is there room for both groups to get along? How adolescents at the beginning of major life changes may accept the slowing differently than adults who have grown up with a regular 24 hour day cycle. Some said that they compared the catastrophe to nuclear destruction because that was the reality of the post-World War II and boomer generation. Today’s children have new and unimagined terrors to confront. One member summed up her response to the lively discussion by saying, “If I had read the book, I would have liked it.”

Just one half of the potluck entrees, soups, and salads

This quote from The Age of Miracles brought a moment of silence:

“Seth and I used to like to picture how our world would look to visitors someday, maybe a thousand  years in the future, after all the humans are gone and all the asphalt has crumbled and peeled away. We wondered what these visitors would find here. We liked to guess at what would last. Here the indentations, suggesting a vast network of roads. Here the deposits of iron where giant structures once stood, shoulder to shoulder in rows, a city. Here the remnants of clothing and dishware, here the burial grounds, here the mounds of earth that were once people’s homes. But among the artifacts that will never be found -- among the objects that will disintegrate long before anyone else arrives -- is a certain patch of sidewalk on a California street where once on a dark afternoon in summer at the waning end of the year of the slowing, two kids knelt down together on the cold ground. We dipped our fingers in the wet cement, and we wrote the truest, simplest things we knew-our names, the date, and these words: We were here.”