Picturing the Good Through Recent American Fiction

Reading Group

February 20, 2025
12:00 - 1:00pm

Today, we take in vast amounts of information about the world through the Internet and social media. This news comes in short and often contextless snippets. Algorithms feed us “more of the same” every day, and steer us away from dissenting views. Is it any wonder, then, that we find ourselves increasingly divided and starved for wisdom?

 

In this four-week reading group, we will look at thorny issues in a different way. By reading short stories and one novella by 20th- and 21st-century American writers, we will walk alongside characters who are wrestling with moral issues that confront us today. What do we owe one another and ourselves? How should we face birth and death, and moments of profound joy and tribulation in between?

 

By refusing to squash human experience into a neat slogan or a 15-second video, fiction gives us an opportunity to reflect on complicated issues with nuance and compassion. If you are looking for a more expansive way to think about abortion, euthanasia, and what exactly constitutes success and “the good life” in America today, please join us for this reading group, “Picturing the Good Through Recent American Fiction.”


MEETING SCHEDULE


12:00-1:00 PM: Bring Your Lunch (beverages provided) | THURSDAYS, Feb. 20 and 27; Mar. 6 and 13


CONTENT CALENDAR


FEBRUARY 20: David Foster Wallace, “Good People” (2007); Tess Slesinger, “Missis Flinders” (1932); Flannery O’Connor, introduction to A Memoir of Mary Ann (1961)

 

FEBRUARY 27: George Saunders, “Tenth of December” (2011); Tobias Wolff, “A Bullet in the Brain” (1995)

 

MARCH 6: Saul Bellow, Seize the Day (1956)

 

MARCH 13: Saul Bellow, Seize the Day (1956)

 

REQUIRED RESOURCES

 

Participants will need to purchase the novella, Seize the Day, by Saul Bellow

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/353599/seize-the-day-by-saul-bellow/


Short stories will be sent to participants by the facilitator.