For the past nine years I’ve run a “Meet the Author” book group in my home as a benefit for a local transitional housing organization in Princeton, NJ. How is it a benefit? Each member of the group makes a donation to the organization. And why are they willing to pay for an activity most people engage in for free? Because “Meet the Author” isn’t just a metaphor for reading our monthly selection; the author of the novel, memoir, non-fiction book or biography is always present for our discussion.I mention this because people are sometimes surprised by how completely open I am to phoning book groups who are discussing my novels, when the fact is that I really believe in this rare and (generally!) wonderful exchange of ideas between author and reader. I am intensely grateful to the nearly 50 writers who have travelled to my home to speak with twenty strangers, so saying yes to book groups reading ADMISSION or one of my earlier novels is my way of saying thank you and passing the goodwill along. (For the record, we don’t pay the authors who appear at our book group, though I guarantee that every book group member will purchase the book, a courtesy that any group inviting an author should absolutely observe.) I love speaking to readers who have forged their own relationships (sometimes good, sometimes bad) with my characters, and who sometimes see things in them that have escaped me. I love discussing the issues my novels have raised with thoughtful people, and getting their perspectives, and I love – as who would not? – hearing that I’ve touched a reader, or that the shape of the story I’ve made has been appreciated. (I’m a passionate reader – most writers are – and I know that one of the great pleasures in life is telling the author of a book I’ve loved how wonderful the experience of reading that book has been.)
One of the themes that has emerged in my own book group over the years is the fact that novelists – at least the ones who’ve appeared at the Meet the Author book group – usually do not know what will happen in their novels when they begin to write, or even, sometimes, until the writing is well underway. Again and again, authors report that they were unaware of the direction their story would take, or what their characters would do, until those elements of the novel revealed themselves. As the only writer in my book group, it isn’t news to me that we can be fairly clueless when we set out to write a novel. Sure, we may have a glimmer of an idea as we begin, a wisp of a character, a notion of a problem that needs to be solved, but the fact remains that we set out in the dark and the lights come on only gradually. By the time a novel is completed – if we’ve done our job well – our work will feel sure-footed, inevitable and unforced, but that is something we achieve along the way. “Did you know that was going to happen?” My fellow book group members always ask the visiting author. And it’s pure unadulterated fun for me to watch their amazement when the author tells them: “Actually, no.”
There’s a lot to talk over in ADMISSION. What is it like to be one of those gatekeepers at selective universities, sifting through thousands of brilliant, exciting and promising young applicants and making such impossible decisions? What does it feel like to be actively resented by just about everyone you meet? How do you carry a secret without letting it infect you, impede you and destroy your potential for connection with other people? If your book group is reading ADMISSION, please don’t be shy!
Get in touch with me by emailing [email protected] and writing “Forward to Jean Hanff Korelitz” in the subject line. I’ll do my best to phone in and join the conversation.
--Jean Hanff Korelitz, Author
