Jessica Anya Blau is the author of the critically-acclaimed coming-of-age story The Summer of Naked Swim Parties. Her second novel, Drinking Closer to Home was released in January. Visit her website, www.JessicaAnyaBlau.com.
My husband doesn’t understand it, but I love visiting book clubs. He can’t imagine why spending an evening with a group of strangers could be fun. But here’s the catch, they’re strangers when you walk into the room, but often friends by the time you walk out. Talking about books and talking about the lives of characters in books, usually generates conversations about our own lives. And when we talk openly about our lives, without pretense or “showing off,” we eventually find ways in which we’re alike and ways to connect even if there’s a gap in our ages and you’ve had three times as many kids as I.When I was visiting book clubs to talk about my first novel, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, readers shared with me sometimes wonderful, sometimes, scary, often sad or heart-breaking stories about their own adolescence and how things were in their family. The parents in The Summer of Naked Swim Parties spend their days naked, smoke marijuana, and throw pool parties where all the adults are naked. It sounds strange and like it could only happen California (where I grew up) but I met people from all over the country who had nudist parents, or parents who simply walked around the house naked.
At one book club, I was met at the door by an elegant woman who lived in an equally elegant house. There were framed photos of her three healthy, blond, private school children displayed neatly on the piano. She had lovely long nails, expensive jewelry and hair that could have been sold to make a wig. To me, she looked like everything I am not, but everything I would, sometimes, love to be. Once the conversation started flowing this woman revealed that not only were her parents nudists, she was sent to a nudist boarding school where the teachers were naked. When I pressed her for details, she laughingly told the group the horrors of walking down a hallway behind her geeky, oldish math teacher who had a tiny, pimply butt and skinny legs.
Now my book, Drinking Closer to Home is out. In Drinking Closer to Home, there is much more to talk about than nudist parents. There are affairs, drug addiction, sex addiction, child abandonment and a home that is so messy, the back of the couch is covered with hardened bird droppings from an un-caged bird. I can’t wait to start visiting book clubs so I can hear about the many ways in which these issues have affected my readers.
I promise, if you tell me your story, I’ll tell you mine!
