Andrew: It’s a remarkable coincidence, really, because our selection process for ToB Reader Judge is based entirely on what people say in their applications, whereas we randomly select our Camp ToB Activity Leaders—so I believe it’s accurate to say we’re lucky to have you back! At the end of each month you decide which of the two books we just read advances to our end-of-summer championship, where you make the ultimate call on which of our three finalists wins an automatic berth in the 2020 Tournament of Books. [Which throws into great confusion for me the scene where she outs Manuel to his sister with the shirts -- anyone have anything to add there? It’s just as caught up in pain and defense and the effort of sorting out her life as Sarah’s novel, and both are fairly public acts, just in different ways. Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, held onto his status as China's richest tycoon this year as surging demand for online shopping and other services during the coronavirus pandemic swelled the fortunes of internet entrepreneurs, according to a survey released Tuesday. (Like, down to our birth dates: I am also a January 1985 baby and had a bit of an uncanny moment when I came to that part.) Like few other novels, it really makes you question what’s real, and even your preferred reality. [Trust Exercise] will surely become a favorite with book clubs.” ―International Examiner Trust Exercise is published by Serpent’s Tail (£14.99). She tells you at the beginning that Karen is a fictional name, and then goes on to narrate her own story in the third person, in order to distance herself from it. Andrew: And what about that final section, where Claire—the third woman you mention, who I presume to be Karen’s daughter—visits the school to learn about her birth mother. When two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley. ], Basically the plot centers around a group of students in an "elite" performing arts high school in the South. And again, it feels like they’re from the perspective of a person who is trying to imbue her teenage years with a weightiness they don’t deserve. Super Rooster week 3! At first glance, the novel’s primary interest is the love story of Sarah and David, sophomores at CAPA (Citywide Academy for the Performing Arts), where, under the tutelage of the captivating, irreverent Mr. Kingsley, they engage in personal confrontations disguised as theater coursework. Frankly, I am blown away at the sheer act of going so far to write a half a book that isn’t great—it’s quite a risk to take, with a huge potential to lose a reader. Karen is furious. Such a confluence is forced and unlikely, but the novel uses this overdetermined quality to its advantage. Was the author implying that the three sections are telling the "same story" (in the sense that it's three different stories of young women being manipulated by and assaulted by much older male predators in positions of power), just written from three different POVs? Help! Which is exactly what she does, only she uses a real bullet that she fires into his groin. Where is the truth here? Amanda: She only drops into first person occasionally, when she’s trying to sort out her feelings about something. Each week we read half of one novel, then meet here on Wednesdays, joined in the booth by a member of the Commentariat—our Activity Leaders, in Camp parlance—to discuss our progress through each book. (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). AD. Can someone who found the brief third section of the book ("Karen"'s daughter, who was given up for adoption, is trying to find out who her mother is and goes to the high school she attended) satisfying explain it to me? Last week we discussed the first half of Trust Exercise. If he is, th. What if the act that led to my conception was sexual assault, and everyone involved chose to leave it out? [The endings of parts 2 and 3 struck me as over-the-top/ ham-fisted and unsatisfying but I probably missed the point. Never miss a match: Sign up for the Rooster newsletter for ToB updates. Thank you, Amanda, for sharing your thoughts with us this week! I loved this, I am really amazed at the twist, but I do feel it’s a risky move for a book, because halfway in, I wasn’t emotionally invested in any way. I did love hearing details here and there in the book, such as that casual mention of Butera’s in the final section. Other staff at the school certainly seem to recognize her, so it would be difficult to believe he doesn't as well. In repeating the story from the perspectives of these three different women, she’s entrusting us to come to some reckoning about sexual abuse, power, and emotional manipulation. There was some discussion last week in the comments among members of our Houston Chapter about the book’s accuracy regarding that mood. We learn this all from the perspective of Karen, who is now 30 and on her way to Sarah’s book signing at Skylight Books in Los Angeles, and who informs us that the versions of everyone we know from Sarah’s novel are highly inaccurate—including their names, though she continues to use them through the second half, which is helpful. (I judged Station Eleven versus All the Light We Cannot See. More relevant to our discussion, who are the women in Trust Exercise trying to protect—Robert Lord, or themselves? Coming this October to a lockdown near you, all the winners from the Tournament of Books compete for a prize 16 years in the making: the Super Rooster, presented by Bookshop. Some normal people meet a serial killer in the Super Rooster, presented by Bookshop! How did you interpret these title pages. Joining us as Activity Leader this week is Amanda McClendon. And if he DOES recognize her and put two and two together... does he knowingly kiss his own daughter? And now it’s time for you, the Commentariat, to tell us which of our July books—Lost Children Archive or Trust Exercise—you want to send to our end-of-summer championship. And that’s what she’s doing with us, the reader. I can’t really say that I like it, per se, but I’m still thinking about it. What did you think of the first half, and about where we’re at now? Andrew: Welcome to Camp ToB, Amanda. (There’s part of me that wonders that if you asked “Sarah” about it, she’d also say she wrote it that way intentionally, trying to voice a teenage girl, but I’d still say she’s not a great writer.). Trust Exercise I live in Houston, and I’m an electronic resources acquisition librarian, which is a fancy way of saying that I buy the database subscriptions for an academic library. she name-drops Memorial Park, our big famous green space. I didn’t love it. Follow The Tournament of Books Staff on Twitter. She’s just as much at a loss. Karen ends her narrative on the play’s opening night, when her character is supposed to shoot Martin’s character with a gun. (BTW, if Lord is Martin, wouldn't that mean Lord w, Others have answered about the "Take five, sweetie" comment, but I just want to add something that I haven't seen anyone answer: I think that several, Others have answered about the "Take five, sweetie" comment, but I just want to add something that I haven't seen anyone answer: I think that several times over the second section it is implies that Sarah had a sexual relationship with Mr. Kingsley -- indeed, at the end we find out that Lord isn't gay (it's a little simplistic how this is viewed as a clearly demarcated binary, actually -- one of myriad things I dislike about this novel). “Trust Exercise” has no condescension for its adolescent subjects, for the tenuousness of their friendships and the all-consuming nature of their sorrows; if anything, there is excessive devotion to the details of CAPA’s inner workings and the aspirations of peripheral characters. Does Claire think Mr. Kingsley (now called Robert Lord) is her father? July 24: Trust Exercise through page 131 (finish part 1, or chapter 5 on audio) July 31: Trust Exercise to the end; Aug. 7: American Spy through page 141 (finish chapter 12, or chapter 13 on audio) Aug. 14: American Spy to the end; Aug. 21: Black Leopard, Red Wolf through page 243 (finish chapter 2) Aug. 28: Black Leopard, Red Wolf to the end More than the geographical details, though, I think the book got a mood detail really right: Almost every kid I knew growing up wanted to get the heck out of Houston after graduation, and almost all of us have come back, like Karen and David. Amanda: Is Claire Karen’s daughter? And speaking of Karen, how believable was her story to you? The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. After declaring that she is not Karen — noting, in fact, “[w]ith apologies to actual Karens,” that it’s “a yearbook name, filler, a girl with a hairstyle like everyone else’s and a face you’ve forgotten” — she takes up the mantle of “Karen,” gives “Sarah” back to Sarah, and decides not to clarify. What did you all think about the repeating title pages at the beginning of each of the 3 sections? Thank you to our Sustaining Members for making Camp ToB possible. Amanda McClendon: Hi! Take five sweetie? Thank you! Granted I glossed over a lot of the first half (was just trying to keep reading) but I am missing something important in Karen's confrontation with Sarah about the book. But I’m glad I pushed through, because it turned out to be a more complex and disturbing book than I had originally thought. Where is the truth? Some normal people meet a serial killer in the Super Rooster, presented by Bookshop! Choi moves from a novel-within-a-novel to a play-within-a-play — Martin’s play, directed by David, starring Karen, with Sarah backstage. (Amazon / IndieBound / Powell’s). Publisher: Henry Holt, 257 pages, $27. I guess it was satisfying to me because it showed the spiraling impacts of the adult men in the theatre school/world continuing to abuse younger girls, [ A melodramatic moment takes place, rightfully, on a stage. Of the many intriguing ways Choi plays with voice, perspective and nomenclature, Karen’s section is the most striking. This week at Camp ToB we begin discussing our final book of the summer—wait, really, already?—Weather by Jenny Offill. Amanda: There were a lot of small details that I don’t think that anyone who’s not a Houstonian would recognize—the gay neighborhood where Mr. Kingsley lived is definitely Montrose/River Oaks, for example. A visiting acting troupe from England brings with it the potential for all manner of heartbreak at CAPA, and Choi leads her readers through a night of debauchery with the CAPA students, the English students and their chaperone, Martin, whose uninhibited manner portends trouble of some kind. Claire’s story exposes him as a sexual predator and finally tells the truth about him, or so we’re meant to conclude; she doesn’t have any incentive to protect a man that knew she might be his daughter and yet decided to try to seduce her.