Book Club Virtual Meeting

February 17, 2021 at 7:00 p.m.

This month we will be reading The Last September by Elisabeth Bowen, an Anglo-Irish writer and one of last century’s greatest woman writers. All AWCH members are invited to join.

The Last September ... paints a picture of the Anglo-Irish gentry in 1920 in muscular, but terminal, decline. Behind the facade of set-piece dinners, tennis parties and army camp dances, all know that the end is approaching. These characters, with their conflicting desires and divided loyalties, are heading for unavoidable disaster; and this is clear from the outset. As a critic has said:

‘What makes The Last September so vividly poignant is that it never turns a judgmental eye on either side of its many small skirmishes, whether it’s a nation fighting for independence from a ruler reluctant to cede control or a girl struggling to free herself from a paternalistic society that has served her people well for centuries. Instead, it merely presents its complicated world as a given, and lets us follow its inhabitants as they try to navigate clear paths for themselves through moral uncertainties.’” (Ian d’Alton, The Irish Times, January 16, 2017)

We hope you will join us for the discussion of this novel set in Ireland, which Bowen described as “fiction with a texture of history”.

 Please sign up for the discussion below. You will receive a link for Zoom by email shortly before the discussion.