Next Meeting: 14th April at 6:30pm to discuss The River Wife by Heather Rose.
Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts is a novel about an American road trip, with all the trimmings of billboards, old motels, and dodgy food including date shakes. It’s told in the second person by Eloise to her husband Lewis –you, as a retrospective from the future.
In November 2018, Eloise and Lewis, rent a car in Las Vegas and take off on a two-week road trip across the American southwest. They make their way through Nevada, California, Arizona, and Utah, tracing the course of the Colorado River. Bushfires rage in California as they travel. The couple, based in New York, appear to be very much in love as we hear about their back story.
Eloise, an Australian expat is an academic studying the history and future of the river for her dissertation. We learn of the river’s stories both First Nations American and the development by the settlers and its impending demise from over extraction. There is a constant dialogue from Eloise of environmental loss and despair with things like water fountains in shopping malls in a desert.
Lewis is an artist working for a prominent land art foundation. He frequently films or has someone film his dance sequences, often in public toilets by himself. He is grieving the recent premature death of his mother from cancer. On the road trip they visit his father and brother in Phoenix. The mother’s journey of dying is described. He also loses his job when the foundation discovers he may have had a part in the coverup of the destruction of the project they funded. Lewis spirals into drug abuse.
Scattered throughout the novel, Eloise reflects on their last year together. An example: ‘the utter poverty of language in the face of calamity…you hated that I was always trying to render things into words…I was stealing your ability to move through life freely.’
Over the course of their trip, Eloise suspects she might be pregnant. Her alcohol intake despite this, is alarming and she doesn’t inform Lewis. Her subsequent miscarriage is described graphically and again she doesn’t inform him.
The novel is infused with many references to American culture i.e. books, films, icons, literature about death, the environment, philosophy and so on. The author includes a bibliography that helps to inform us of her thinking and extensive research.
The author, when interviewed, agreed with her host that Elegy is about grief, love and water.
Our readers had varying opinions about the book. Some found it compelling, melancholic, distressing, poetic. Others found it jarring, monotonously compelling, almost dystopian, personal interactions were stilted, a mixture of irony, pathos, tragedy & slapstick humour. We did agree that we were left with a sense of loss for the environment and melancholy for those lost.
Ratings: Janet 3.5, Viv 3.5, Lesley 4, Nicola 3, Hetta 4, Dianne 3, Pauline 3, Veronica 3, Sandy 3.5
We look forward to seeing you again at our next meeting at 6.30pm, Tuesday 14th of April
to discuss The River Wife by Heather Rose.
About Us
We are a group that gets together once a month to discuss good books. Each of us gets to choose a book on a rotational basis, preferably one outside our personal comfort zone – we try to keep the trash to ourselves. After the discussion, we comment on other books we read that month. Most of the time we remain friends after the meeting.
We normally meet at Room 2.1 of the Robina Community Centre’s Boadroom. This building is located opposite the Auditorium entrance of the Robina Library on the second Tuesday of every month from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
A small contribution is required towards the rent of the room, but not if you are a first timer. The amount depends on the number of people attending.
One book title is chosen each month and we all read that book. There is a ‘host’ who introduces and co-ordinates the discussion. The role of host is rotated around the group so that each member has the opportunity to nominate their book (it could also be an author, theme or genre). The host also acts as chairperson for that meeting.
Although we are not a social club (we are readers), we occasionally attend literary events, relevant movies or plays here at the Gold Coast, Brisbane or Byron Bay. We conform to basic meeting practices, and everyone has an equal opportunity to express their opinion. Everyone’s interpretation is valid, as long as it’s expressed respectfully.
We welcome any new members who share our aims and are happy to contribute to our group. Newcomers are not required to have read the book to attend the first meeting and no contribution is required from them at the first meeting attended.
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