Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones and "The Mixed up Brothers of Bogota" by Susan Dominus

 

For our last bookclub of 2022, we doubled up and discussed two readings so that we could continue to live up to our name of Six Books a Year. Our second reading was an article instead of a book, but we'll let it slide.

Our first reading was Lisa's pick called Easy Beauty: A Memoir by Chloe Cooper Jones. This book tells the story of a philosophy graduate student who has been disabled since birth and who goes through a period of personal growth. One night, she socializes with two fellow grad students who start debating "whether or not my life is worth living," and thus begins her personal journey exploring society's and her own views of disability, beauty, worthiness, marriage, motherhood, friendship, forgiveness and many other topics. Along the way, the author takes us to museums in Rome, a Beyonce concert in Milan, a tennis tournament in California, and Killing Fields in Cambodia.

The book stimulated lengthy discussions about disability with perspectives from some who have members of their families with disabilities. We went deep into many of the characters including the narrator, the narrator's husband, mother, father, son and friends. We also heard perspectives from Lisa who is good friends with someone who knows the author well (and is even mentioned in the book). We agreed that the book offered real substance and it showed in our in-depth discussions.

We also read a New York Times Magazine article from 2015 called "The Mixed Up Brothers of Bogota" by Susan Dominus. The article describes the meeting of two pairs of identical twins who were separated at birth. Because of an accidental mix-up, each twin thought his brother was a fraternal twin, when in reality, the other brother was an identical twin being raised by the other family. The article also inspired interesting conversations about genes, the nature vs. nurture debate, cultural differences, and parenting styles.

We were so thankful that everyone could make it, even Liz who was so sick she could barely speak (get better soon!) Rebecca made the local folks a delicious homemade meal of lasagna and carrot curried soup. We enjoyed homemade cookies from Lisa and Heidi. We also heard some recited poetry from Heidi and Rebecca. What a satisfying bookclub!