Hello, reader!
We are one week into the new year and I’m dusting the cobwebs off my completely atrophied brain. By now, you may have gotten your copy of the National Book Award Winning Wistover Book Club pick of January, Blackouts, by genius author Justin Torres. If you haven’t, don’t worry! There’s still plenty of time to catch up.
The novel is structured like a walk through the protagonist’s stream of consciousness. There are many images and lots and lots of white space. This format works exceedingly well to further both the plot and experience, as you’ll notice, but it also makes it the perfect January book club pick. By which I mean, it’s a both fun and forgiving read to ease you back into this exercise in personal edification.
I’ve divided the book into sections and I’ve created a dedicated chat for each one, all linked below. Anyone who has experienced post-pandemic higher education will be familiar with this format but for those for whom “Blackboard” is either a tool of your collegiate past or simply another work for a chalkboard, here’s how it works:
This space is for any general thoughts about the book, including, but not limited to, photos of the book in the wild, selfies of your shining faces with the book, ideas about general theme, or even to gush about Justin Torres’ broadly! I want to see it all! If it’s even tangentially relevant, drop it here. And if it isn’t relevant, drop that here as well!
Week 1 - Part I and Part II (pp. 7-113)
Week 2 - Part III, Part IV, Part V, (pp. 118-248)
Week 3 - Part VI, Endnotes (pp. 253-297)
This is a reading guide for those who would like one! Feel free to read at your own pace (faster or slower), the great thing about this digital format is that the chats will continue to live on so don’t worry if you fall behind. Additionally, you might consider reading the endnotes as you go in which case your weekly page count may differ but I’ve endeavored to keep each week to ~100 pages.
The chats will be open indefinitely so feel free to jump in there at any point. This is the place for spoilers, favorite lines or passages, questions, comments, concerns, insights, epiphanies! The more you share the more you’ll get out of the book club. This is also where I will source questions for my interview with Justin so please don’t hold back!
Technical Stuff:
The Chat should be accessible through the Wistover url (clarkmoore.substack.com) but it is really optimized for the mobile app. Here’s a brief tutorial of how to set the app up on your phone:
Download the app by clicking this link or the button below. Substack Chat is now available on both iOS and Android.
Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.
That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.