MADISON, Wis. — Sipping coffee and nibbling slices of cake, book club members paged through tattered copies of Alice Walker’s novel “Meridian” and discussed the death imagery throughout the first few chapters of the Pulitzer Prize-winning work.
They don’t have homes.
The homeless book club at Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison, Wis., gathers every Tuesday to discuss books, short stories and poems, and meet with authors who visit in person or via Skype. Club members frequently watch a film on the same topic of the book they’re reading.
Some come because they love to read. Some come because it’s something to do. Others come for the camaraderie.
“The neat thing about the book club, whether or not we were discussing the book, (is) we always started off talking about the book, and then we strayed off in how the book was affecting their lives,” said Mark Wilson, a volunteer in Bethel’s homeless ministry who helped start the club.
Books range from classics to potboilers, best-sellers to self-published titles. They’re donated by publishers, authors, parishioners, other book clubs and, in one instance, a woman who donated $300 she won playing fantasy football. Some books have been given by schools after students read them for a class, while some come from book festivals and reading programs.
The size of the group varies and is often weather-dependent.
“As people get jobs or move away, or they go to jail, there’s an ebb and flow with our regulars,” the Rev. Alison Williams said.
Club members request titles and, like any group, some want to read only fiction while others like true crime or memoirs.
In December, the group read Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” After reading Rudyard Kipling’s short story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” they watched the movie “Jumanji.” They plan to watch the film version of “The Help” while reading “Meridian.”
“A lot of people say ‘Oh, it’s a homeless book group. Here’s some self-help books,’ but just because they’re homeless doesn’t mean they want to read self-help books,” Williams said. “They want to read good fiction and other great books just like everyone else.”
Garth Stein met with the group via Skype when the club read his best-selling novel “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”
“The conversation was just as intelligent and full as any other conversation I do with any other groups,” Stein said.
To many, the homeless are invisible, Stein said. “Most of the people walk by them on the street and don’t see them. They avert their eyes. … You can take away someone’s car or house, but you can’t take away someone’s imagination.”
“I’ve had an advertising executive, an attorney, a former Marine … all homeless,” said Wilson. “The education levels don’t really mean much.”
“If it’s sunny out, I’m usually out running around,” he said. “I go to the library and read comic books.”
Because of their shared experiences, club members’ reaction to some books can be different from those in more conventional book clubs. When they read John Grisham’s “An Innocent Man” some club members talked about their experiences in the justice system.
“We all hated (Jeannette Walls’ memoir) ‘The Glass Castle.’ It was all about child abuse and homelessness, which hit too close to home,” Williams said.
