Reading Groups

Water Works with Sheila Kohler (Online Only)

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4 Monthly Sessions Mondays, 6:00 pm EDT - 7:30 pm EDT September 13 to December 13, 2021

Online via Zoom

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The ‘With Books’ option includes all titles required for this group at a 15% discount.

Meeting Dates:
9/13, 10/11, 11/15, 12/13

We will read four books by four women where the drama centers on water. The authors use rivers, seas, swimming, boats, and the danger of drowning to create suspense and to suggest both a destructive element and a maternal, life-giving force.

  • Session I: Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates. A fictionalization of the drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick.
  • Session II: The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Dickie Greenleaf’s father sends Tom Ripley to Italy to bring his son home, but Ripley changes his identity at sea in a boat.
  • Session III: Open Secrets by Sheila Kohler. Alice’s husband, a Swiss banker disappears at sea when he goes sailing with a Russia mafioso. In order to discover what has happened to him Alice swims out to the boat off the coast of Italy.
  • Session IV: “Child’s Play” from Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro. A wonderful story where Alice Munro withholds the central drama, which takes place in a lake, right up to the end. Water here is both a destructive element and can also be seen as the source of the character’s redemption.
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Led by

  • Sheila Kohler by Beowulf Sheehan

    Sheila Kohler

    Sheila Kohler

    Sheila Kohler is the author of eleven novels, three volumes of short fiction, a memoir, and many essays. Her most recent novel is Open Secrets (July 2020, Penguin). She has won numerous prizes including the O.Henry twice and been included in Best American Short Stories, most recently in 2013. Her work has been published in thirteen countries. She has taught at Columbia, Sarah Lawrence, Bennington and at Princeton since 2007. Her novel, Cracks was made into a film with directors Jordan and Ridley Scott, with Eva Green playing Miss G. You can find her blog at Psychology Today under “Dreaming for Freud.”

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

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