(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers)
One of the loveliest side effects or consequences of reading and loving books is that more often than you might expect that a solitary pursuit – mostly though not always; reading out loud to someone incapable of doing it themselves, anyone? – becomes a group activity, a communal exercise that takes you from curled up alone on a couch to a nattering group of likeminded people in a bookshop, home or library.
Or anywhere, really.
That’s the thing about reading becoming something more than a gorgeous solo escape to worlds not your own; it can be take place almost anywhere with anyone and while conversation might stray away from the book as much as stays lavishly and affectionately on it, the central reason for being there and together is to talk about why one story has affected you so damn much (or not as the case may be).
In The Single Mums’ Book Club, we see how reading and a love of books has the power to change fortunes, and outlooks and to shape reality, not so much because the books have that kind of persuasive grunt, though truthfully they often do, but because talking about them reminds people of the impact that a selfless community can have upon them, how it can banish loneliness and grief, not entirely but enough that life is more than liveable again, and bring the pulse of happiness in a way no one saw coming ever again.
Thank you so much for tonight. I needed it. A x
‘I think we all did,’ I whisper under my breath.
While there is a rom-com action percolating through the pages in wondrously life-lifting ways, chiefly through the main character, Stephanie, who, as we meet her, is caught in the emotionally violent backwash of a divorce that has seen her husband Mike decide he has had enough of being married and that he needs to be a free spirit again.
All very nice for him as he gets to gold when he pleases and to go to after-work drinks after a day at his highly-paid job, but Stephanie is left trying to wrangle three children, who she loves mind you but how can they not remember where they’ve left vital things mere minutes before a departure to school must happen, and get them to place THEY MUST BE while stretching a limited budget to all the food and supplies she needs.
Add to all that domestic pressure, her ghosting by her previously solid high-end corporate friends who decided they couldn’t decide between her and her ex, and Stephanie is alone, stressed and so swamped by being a mum that she can’t see the forest for the soiled nappies and missing clothing items.
Then, one very weepy day where sobbing in the supermarket, while embarrassing, seems all but inevitable, Stephanie encounters her (almost) irrepressibly garrulous neighbour Amanda, someone to whom she had only previously absent-mindedly waved, and they strike up a firm and life-changing friendship that seems them start a book club that soon includes lonely upper-crust widow Amanda who, it turns out, needs their company and talk of books more than she even realised.
(courtesy official Victoria Cooke Facebook page)
These three women unite in their desolation of varying kinds over books and reading, and while the conversation often moves beyond their chosen reason for being there, it is the anchor that draws them together every fortnight and means that what seemed to be insurmountable challenges faced wholly alone, suddenly feel like things that can be conquered – well, maybe, possibly, who knows but hey, at least someone else knows about them – and maybe even moved beyond.
If that all seems too fantastically, fairytale good-to-be-true, then the delight of The Single Mums’ Book Club is that while you get your beautiful tale of the power of found family and belonging, and the great life changes for the better that can seemingly magic into being, you also get a grounding sense of life in all its messy unpredictability and unsolvability.
All of which means that while happier-ever-afters are in the offing, and they are as wondrous as these three people deserve, they are hard-won and inarguably well-earned and all the more valued because of it.
Cooke has a way of investing her story of reading and books and community and belonging with the sage realities of life without leaching any of the wonderful joy that comes from finding your people, after you’ve lost the ones that once defined you, and it means that while The Single Mums’ Book Club does offer delightful highs and true joy, it also sagely knows the road to finding them is not an easy one.
He holds his hands up. ‘Only if you want to? It’s still early and I thought we could have a warm drink and dry off. I can drop you home if you prefer?’
I shake my head. Seeing Edward’s house is strangely appealing. Despite all the time we’ve spent together, he is still an enigma to me and I definitely don’t want this night to end.
The glue in all of this is, of course, how reading can unite people who might otherwise not have come together.
They may not always finish the books because life gets in the way, and they sometimes might not even have the money to buy the books and have to cause an incident at the library, not deliberately, as they seek to borrow them – this one scene is fun but also illuminating about the path to better things trips and stumbles far more than it boldly strides forward – but at the core, they are seeking to read, to escape, to learn and to grow, and in so doing, in their attempts to read and gather to discuss what they have read, they find their lives changing, sometimes for better, sometimes not, but always changing and that is far better than being sadly moribund.
This is especially true for Stephanie who finds a romantic prospect when she finds a job and who learns that maybe all the things she thought she wanted may not be the things she wants after all, or in the case of her vision of a perfect family, not in the form she imagined them.
The Single Mums’ Book Club is a love letter to the power of community and belonging that can come from joining with others over the often solo pursuit of reading and a shared love of books, and it engages you because as well as recognising how differently powerful stories can be when they move from the solitary to the communal, it takes us deep into the selflessly supportive community that results, the love that springs forth where there was none, and the deep, sustaining bonds that can change everything, mostly for the better, simply because three women decide to join together, walk about books and see what happens.