Note: Tomorrow is my birthday, and as a token of my thanks to everyone who subscribes to this substack, I’m sharing the first session of the latest book club with you, in case you want to learn about this writer or hear other writers talk about her. You can opt out of content like this if you don’t want to hear about book club.
We talked about the above clip on the podcast, and we talked about it during the first meeting of the latest book club the other night.
Muriel Spark says she writes her novels by writing the title of her book, writing her name, writing “chapter one,” writing to the end, and then revising once.
Ha!
Do you believe her?
I go back and forth. I can’t decide how blinded by envy I am.
When we talked about it three nights ago, at the introductory session of the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie book club, I put the novelists Rebecca Brown and Brian Bouldrey on the spot and asked them if they believed her.
I think I changed my mind while they were talking.
We also talked about a bunch of other things, including Spark’s life story, her writing about Mary Shelley, her years editing a magazine, her years when she was addicted to diet pills, and the publication history of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
This short novel first appeared as a very long piece of fiction in the October 14, 1961 issue of The New Yorker.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is totally back-to-school, leaves-are-falling reading, so if you’re you’re looking for something to get you into that seasonal mood, and you’re not in this club, there’s still time to join us.
Here are two different ways to watch the first session:
✨⬇️ Watch here✨
Speaker view
Gallery view
If you do decide to join us—tickets here—well, now you haven’t missed anything.
This is the edition of the book that I’m reading, if you want to have the same page numbers as me during discussions.
We’re reading the first two chapters by next Thursday at 6 pm Pacific. Bring a favorite character so far, and a favorite sentence from the first two chapters, if you decide to join us.
There are four more meetings of this club. Happy September.
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