speed reading...

i had a month to read "the garden of last days" by andre dubus III for book club tonite...

i started reading the book this morning...535 pages...i got to page 448...so i didn't quite finish the book...but i will...

book club was an interesting discussion tonite...one of the characters in the book was based on one of the 9/11 highjackers...some of this character was factual while some was fiction...

after 9/11 america started finding out more about the terrorists...where they had been, what they had studied...we learned after that horrible morning...that many of them had trained in florida and that they had been seen visiting strip clubs...

this book was based in florida...the life of a stripper, her customers, her co-workers, her three year old child...it delves into the dark and anguished places in the human heart...

"a big-hearted and painful novel about sex and parenthood and honor and masculinity...set in the steamy underside of american life at the moment before the world changed...it juxtaposes lust for domination with hunger for connection...sexual violence with family love..."

it was a hard book to read...it was raw...it was passionate...each of the characters was dealing with loneliness...and each character made choices that to them seemed right...they believe their own version of the truth...and each truth seems right while we (the reader's) are in the character's head...

i have really been enjoying the book club...the members all seem to get a kick out of me that i read the books in one day...

our last book was "love in the time of cholera" which i read in one day...

i keep telling them that i do that so that the book is fresh on my mind for discussion...they just seem to focus on the fact that i am a speed reader...

our next book will be about 200 or so pages...i know i can get that done in no time...these thick ones are killing me...or maybe i should just learn to read a book a little at a time...