Book Club was an interesting meet tonight
Smaller in numbers than meeting one , I missed the presence of the cheerful Faisal but the group was certainly buoyed up by two new members, a bright, chatty lesbian couple from Savannah, Georgia .
Our book was Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton which is an exploration into white supremacy radicalisation within a private English School and the subsequent armed attack on teachers and pupils one snowy morning.
I enjoyed the book , unlike most of the group , but the conversation grew rather intense when one of the facilitators asked the American couple their take on it, given the fact they had only just arrived in the country and that school shootings were very. Much a product of the US
The women looked at each other carefully and the dark haired girl told her story of when she experienced a school shooting as a child where many children , her friends, were killed.
It was a sobering, moving and total unexpected moment that shocked us all.
And in the silence that followed ,the blonde partner , smiled a big smile and said simply
“ why do you think we have come to the UK to live?”
These two women, bright democrats both then told us stories of their experiences of guns, gun crime and gun mentality .
They were neither exaggerating or angry, just resigned and tired of it all
And when they had finished
Discussing a novel didn’t quite seem the most pressing thing to do
