Building Community in this Sh*t Show
By: Selena Lopez and Community Team
This month, the Community Team decided to go meta: read a book about building community when the world is in chaos—and no, it wasn’t just a collection of current news articles. We read Hestia Strikes a Match (2023) by Christine Grillo and met online together to chat about it. When it feels like everyone is telling you to join this group or that group and just go out there and “build community,” (us included, guilty as charged), we decided to practice what we preach. Here’s a look into how we did it and our discussion.
But First, A Look into the Book
Hestia Strikes a Match is a humorous speculative fiction novel about a world where the U.S. has just started the second civil war (or as Dorothy, one of the novel’s retirement home residents says on page 20, “It’s the same civil war from more than one hundred fifty years ago. We’re in season 2, episode 1.”). Told from the point of view of Hestia, a middle-aged white woman, we follow her escapades of finding love after her husband abandoned her to join the Union militia, trying to build community as a tried-and-true “commitaphobe” (in the words of our very own, Emily Sayre), and trying to navigate differing values and ethics in her family as it relates to the war. Against the backdrop of a divided United States and civil unrest (they even have a Waze-like app that reports instances of protest or violence), the novel offers a look into how everyday life goes on in times of war—we noted in our discussion, “war does not happen in a bubble,”— even when it feels absurd.
One of the most notable parts of the novel was the oral history project that Hestia is leading in the retirement home. The residents are asked questions about the second civil war, love, heartbreak, hope, loneliness, America, and more—and where the book may fall short in terms of punchy and deeper reflection about the state of the world, the residents (on page 217) offer an unfiltered, wise, and often funny lens into it instead:
“Question 32: Why do you think America is so polarized?
Charles: There’s an America that some people never see. It’s not just the ignorance, it’s the hardness. Some people grow up hard, and all that hardness makes them mean. They’re people who, if they see you slip on ice, what’s the first thing they’re going to do? They’re going to laugh. They may eventually help you, or they may not — but first, they’re going to laugh.
…
Mildred: It’s so simple. America’s polarized because some people like change, and some people don’t. And everything is changing. And change is everything.”
Now Let’s Get Into It: The Community Book Club™
The idea for our impromptu book club was actually born quite spontaneously—we were brainstorming ideas for articles, and I couldn’t stop thinking about this book. Mind you, not because it was an impeccable, flawless work of art, but because to me, it marked a shift in the way I experienced speculative fiction. It was no longer, haha, imagine-this-somewhat-unlikely-near-future-world, but instead: “Is this what our world could look like in the actual very near future?” And I wanted to share my thoughts with someone, anyone.
I mentioned the book to the team and how I thought it could be fun to write a meta-article about building community when the world is in chaos. Folks were intrigued, and before I knew it, we’d all agreed to read the book and meet up in a couple of weeks to chat about it. It really was that easy, and it didn’t need to feel like this huge thing that I needed to overly plan and prepare for (I’m an overthinker, can you tell?). I made sure to draft a handful of discussion questions (if you have a chatty group, you really don’t need as many questions as you think—we barely got through three or four of our questions in about an hour, but no harm in being prepared) and prepared a Zoom link. We were ready to go.
The Discussion
One more thing: If you’re an overthinker/overplanner like me and need some extra guidance, one of the things I did to help me draft questions was engage with the existing reviews and interviews on the World Wide Web. Doing this helped me gauge what others enjoyed or didn’t about the book, gave me additional insights from the author and her process for writing the book that enriched our discussion, and overall helped me feel more confident going in. If it’s your first time leading a book club discussion, I would highly recommend going with a book that has existing content out there, just to make it feel less daunting.
Now, here’s a look into some of our written notes from the discussion:
Q: What were your overall impressions of the book? How did it feel to read something that felt eerily possible in our current political climate?
Amanda (@amandasbrews): My first impressions are that it feels very believable…The thing that is hard to remember about wars is that industries are still carrying on, which means that people are still going about their everyday lives. Yes, they’re impacted, but capitalism isn’t about to stop just because we go to war. Especially considering how much of our economy is tied to the military-industrial complex.
Caitlyn (@candidlycaitlyn.mph): In general, I thought the book had a clear goal of highlighting that life goes on even amidst a war. What that life looks like and how we move through it obviously changes, but how do we continue to form community and exist even in extreme circumstances? … I also did not like Hestia as a character. Her choices were questionable, and she irritated me like no other.
Q: How do you feel about the novel’s approach to juxtapositioning something like a second civil war and things like dating, friendship, and building community?
Emily (@ems.book.shelf_): I think it’s true to human nature to want to find love and someone to spend your time with even when the world is literally on fire. You have to find the things and people that make you happy to help tune out the bad for a bit.
Selena (@sels.pages): This was honestly what drew me most to the novel,especially at the beginning of the year when the world truly felt overwhelmingly sad and infuriating. I asked myself constantly, “How do we just continue to exist and function right now?” and this book’s approach reminded me that even in times of chaos, as humans, we will crave connection. Having it spelled out so clearly to me in that way was reaffirming, honestly.
Q: What do you think of the oral history project in the retirement home, and what did it add to the novel?
Caitlyn: This oral history project is a great example of the importance of storytelling in remembering history. At the same time, I felt like the author should have explored the responses more thoroughly throughout the text. Some responses would be super profound observations about society and how we interact with each other, but they were never explored in the story through Hestia.
Emily: The oral history project was really interesting. I think, for one, it showed how to foster community. You have to communicate to have a community. And while she was doing so, she was able to ask questions related to what was directly happening in her life, while learning about the residents.
Your Turn: Lead Your Own Book Discussion
I’ll be the first to admit that leading ~ things ~ can be scary! But I’m also telling you that you can do scary things. Break it up into little steps, and tell someone, like a good friend who also enjoys books, that you want to lead a book discussion. Hopefully, they encourage you (like my Community Team did!) and then you’ve taken it from a thought in your head to something you can start planning.
Here are some next steps for you:
Pick a book: My recommendation is that if it’s your first time doing something like this, choose a book that you’ve either already read and are excited about, or one is somewhat popular so you can reference other content (like reviews, blogs, interviews, etc) online. Be sure to look into library availability or indie bookstores that may carry the book you pick.
Tell your friends about it: Get together a group of friends who enjoy reading, or who maybe want to get into reading! A group of four to eight would be my recommendation.
Set a date and place: Be sure to give everyone plenty of time to read, especially if you have some newer readers in the group. My suggestion would be three to four weeks. Also, don’t be afraid to be firm and make decisions like picking the location and/or date without a lot of back and forth. Of course, be accommodating if you can be, but sometimes I know I appreciate when decisions are made, and that mental load can be taken off others.
Draft your questions: If you’re reading a book for the first time, I would highly recommend jotting potential questions as you read (and take notes for your future discussion), and then fine tune your questions by exploring reviews or critiques online later. Aim for at least five questions.
Lead your discussion: This can arguably feel like the most stressful part, but as long as you lean on your questions with some of your insights from your research and encourage others to engage (don’t be afraid to pull someone into the conversation!), it should be a wonderful time to just be in community. Snacks don’t hurt either, of course.
If you’ve made it this far, it might mean that you, too, have entertained the thought of leading your own book discussion, and maybe you, too, wonder how to possibly do it-—build community. There’s no perfect way to go about it, as we learned through Hestia in Hestia Strikes a Match, but what matters is that you try. Hopefully, we can all learn along the way.