Our book club nearly fell apart over a novel set in the 1800s

Last month, my book club in Portland was debating The Underground Railroad, and it turned into a real mess. Three people walked out halfway through because they said the author was exploiting trauma for entertainment, while two others insisted it was necessary to face history. We started as a friendly group three years ago, meeting at the local library, but this split has made things tense. I tried to mediate by suggesting we focus on the writing style instead of the moral questions, but nobody wanted to drop their stance. Has anyone else seen a book cause this kind of permanent rift in their group? We might need to set some ground rules about what topics are off limits.

2 comments

2 Comments

gonzalez.vera1mo ago

My group had a similar blowup over The Poisonwood Bible a couple years back. Three of us thought it was a powerful look at colonialism, but two others got really upset about the missionary family being portrayed as just clueless instead of evil villains. We spent like two whole meetings going back and forth about whether the author was being too soft on them or too hard on them. Ended up just agreeing to disagree and sticking to lighter books for a few months until the tension died down.

joseph5291mo ago

Man, is it really that deep? People get way too heated over a book, it's just someone's take on a story.