Entry FeedLast night our book club discussed Barnacle Love by Anthony De Sa and it was the best book club ever.
The book is sort of a collections of short stories, sort of a novel, about Manuel who comes to Canada from the Azores. The story is rich with life, and prose is beautiful. The characters and their emotions are so universal, and it covers heavy themes granting them a levity with humour. We had some great bottles of Portuguese wine with amazing sweet breads and custard tarts, too!
The highlight was that the actually author, Anthony De Sa, attended our discussion. He was open and honest, sharing with us his feelings on the writing process, his experience as a Canadian of Portuguese dissent, and on the Canadian Literary landscape. Anthony (Please - call me Anthony) is a high school English teacher whose first book, Barnacle Love, made it to the short list for the Giller Prize.
I can tell you that Anthony is an amazing story teller. He gave us background on where the characters came from, and how people keep assuming the fiction is fact. It is amazing to discuss a book with the author sitting there, being able to ask why things happened the way they did. Anthony even recommended that we invite authors to future book clubs (some request an honourarium.)
I got home just before midnight, but couldn't sleep as my mind was still buzzing with the excitement of my evening. I love my book club!