Hi guys! Well, another wonderful, fun, successful meetup in Feb! Every month seems to be bigger and bigger! Well, for April we have chosen another fun one! Just as a note, we always choose 2 months in advance. So if you ever need to know the book ahead, try using the "calendar" function, on the left hand side. Anyway . . . For April, we have chosen "Night Train to Lisbon" by Pascal Mercier. As if we haven't had enough of European tales, we choose yet another one, but of course, as great as these last ones have been, how could we not? Here is what Publisher's Weekly has to say:
In Swiss novelist Mercier's U.S. debut, Raimund Gregorius is a gifted but dull 57-year-old high school classical languages teacher in Switzerland. After a chance meeting with a Portuguese woman in the rain, he discovers the work of a Portuguese poet and doctor, Amadeu de Prado, persecuted under Salazar's regime. Transfixed by the work, Gregorius boards a train for Lisbon, bent on discovering Prado's fate and on uncovering more of his work. He returns to the sites of Prado's life and interviews the major players—Prado's sisters, lovers, fellow resistors and estranged best friend—and begins to lose himself. The artful unspooling of Prado's fraught life is richly detailed: full of surprises and paradoxes, it incorporates a vivid rendering of the Portuguese resistance to Salazar. The novel, Mercier's third in Europe, was a blockbuster there. Long philosophical interludes in Prado's voice may not play as well in the U.S., but the book comes through on the enigmas of trying to live and write under fascism
This looks like another great read, so I can't wait to see you all there!
Shelly Y Hughes-Tetu
“ Enjoyed it very much, very different than my other meetups. Friendly, well read, fun group . I'll be going back. ”
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