Non-Fiction Book Club: Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff, Thursday, April 5, 2012 @ 6:30PM

As a humble moderator, I would like to thank, once again the dedicated and insightful folks comprising the Non Fiction book group for a thoughtful, if somewhat contentious, discussion of James Carroll's memoir An American Requiem. Y'all brought it: perspective and passion. Great work.

It is time, once again to set our sights on another nonfiction gem. This time around, we'll be leaving the nebulous, fact bending world of memoir to enter the better researched emotionally removed neighboring province of biography. Though it is clear, the facts of the life of the figure outlined in the chosen book are certainly shrouded in misconception, bombast, and caricature. I am talking of Cleopatra. And the book—meticulously cobbled together by, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer Stacy Schiff (Vera: Mrs. Vladimir Nabakov)—is Cleopatra: A Life.


As Ms. Schiff outlines in her opening chapter there are only a few actual recorded facts known about Cleopatra. The rest of her story has been written by her enemies or admirers, often decades or lifetimes after her death.

And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history. The holes in the record present one hazard, what we have constructed around them another. Affairs of state have fallen away, leaving us with affairs of the heart. A commanding woman versed in politics, diplomacy, and governance; fluent in nine languages; silver-tongued and charismatic, Cleopatra nonetheless seems the joint creation of Roman propagandists and Hollywood directors. ... To restore Cleopatra is as much to salvage the few facts as to peel away the encrusted myth and the hoary propaganda.

Ironically enough, the rights to this myth peeling biography have been bought by film producer Scott Rubin with Angelina Jolie's name being bandied about to play the queen. Ah, Hollywood.

I've posted a video of Ms. Schiff on the Tavis Smiley show talking about her reasons for taking on the task of illuminating the life of this elusive character.

Watch Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

NF Book Club - An American Requiem by James Carroll - Thursday, March 1st @ 6:30pm

What a refreshing thing it is to discuss a book with a diverse group of attentive and considerate adults. Reading is such a solitary, intimate and sometime arduous experience that to be able to share one's gained insights with a larger group of people who partook of the same solitary, intimate and sometimes arduous experience is a rare and wonderful thing. We're lucky this book group meets every month. What I mean to say is thank you once again to the Pollard's Non-Fiction Book Group, for this past Thursday's heartfelt discussion of The Emperor of All Maladies.

And to announce to Greater Lowell book lovers, it is time to set your sights on the next Non-Ficiton monograph. The selection for next month's discussion should be very interesting indeed. On Thursday, March 1st @ 6:30pm we will be discussing An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us by James Carroll.


Carroll is a former priest and Boston Globe columnist and this memoir won him the National Book Award in 1996. Here is a short synopsis from the jacket:

In this dramatic, intimate, and tragic memoir, James Carroll recovers a time that one of us will ever forget - a time when parents could no longer understand their sons and daughters and when you people could no longer recognize the country they had been raised to love. The wounds inflicted in that time have never fully healed, but healing is something that Carroll accomplishes in telling his family's remarkable story. The Carroll Family stood at the center of all the conflicts whirling around the Vietnam War. ... An American Requiem is a benediction on his father's life, his family's struggles, and the legacies of an entire generation.

Mr. Carroll will be reading from American Requiem at Suffolk University's Modern Theatre on February 15th. Unfortunately, it appears this show, which was free and open to the public, has been SOLD OUT.