It’s #PreFridayReads when a Tall Poppy author recommends a book she loved. So if you’re looking for a great recommendation for your #FridayReads or another book to meet your 2017 Poppy Reading Challenge, read on.
We’ll help you turn the page …
Brandi Megan Granett Recommends The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
I don’t read a lot of books written by men anymore, but when I do, odds are it would be a book by Charles Baxter. His novel, The Feast of Love, hooked me with his narrator also an author named Charles Baxter who starts out on a late night journey that turns in an exploration of a neighbor’s divorce. This meddling in the affairs of others doesn’t stop with the neighbor. Narrator Charles Baxter encounters a whole town worth of people, weaving in their stories about love and relationships.
One of the best things about this book is the how each chapter focuses on a different character’s point of view, and while some people would say this book is light on plot, I would say it is rich in human experience.
Jacqueline Carey in The New York Times echoes my assessment, writing, “In ”The Feast of Love,” Charles Baxter shows us the hard-won generosity of spirit that day-to-day dealings with other human beings require. He builds a community right on the page before us, using a glittering eye, a silvery tongue — and just a little moonlight.”
I dare you to immerse yourself in the buffet of characters Baxter so expertly laid out before us.
Brandi Megan Granett (formerly Scollins-Mantha) is the author the upcoming TRIPLE LOVE SCORE (Wyatt-Maczenie, Fall 2016), MY INTENDED (Eagle Brook/Morrow, 2000), and CARS AND OTHER THINGS THAT GET AROUND (2014). She earned her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Aberystwyth University, Wales, and her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Stockton, NJ, with her husband and daughter. When she is not writing or teaching or mothering, she is honing her Olympic archery skills.
