April Book Club - Book of Delights

Eight of us gathered at the home of Laura Hyatt on Wednesday April 17 to discuss “The Book of Delights” by Ross Gay. One virtue of this book, we agreed, is that it is not just sunshine and roses, despite the title. Instead, Gay judiciously mixes the sour with the sweet. For instance, he acknowledges the challenges of being a black man in America; he has a horrific little bit on a man who literally has a hole in his head due to being experimented on with radiation as a child (as in several of these “essayettes,” the delight is smuggled into a brief sentence, while the main point is something else entirely). But just as light is brighter when contrasted with darkness, his moments of delight are more welcome when we remember life is not always cheery. And so we have delight in a red flower growing in a crack in the sidewalk, an unexpected high-five, nicknames, carrots (“the red kind that have almost become two carrots, carrot legs in need of some petite pantaloons.”). A poet, Gay chooses his words with care, but he also muses here in a casual, stream-of-consciousness way that some found a bit irritating, at least at first. We appreciated his humor, and the way he moves from a small incident or item to something more profound. We recommend this book to others.