Book Club: The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival

For August, We read:

The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival by Ken Wheaton

Are you reading along? Well, what did you think?  

Our group met this week to discuss the book and our overall assessment was mixed, with a majority of the group enjoying the book. Most found it funny (Some were waking up their bed mates with guffaws, chortles, and laughing fits during parts of the book) and well written, with like-able and fleshed out characters who are realistically flawed.  A few of our readers reared up about the book's protagonist, who is a Catholic priest.

It so happens that a majority of our readers are Catholic or have a Catholic connection, so the irreverent portrayal of a man in a priestly position was at the least a bit of an eye opener and at most shocking to the point of rage. The bottom line for me was that Priests are people too. Imperfect, not immune from temptation, and certainly struggling with falling into sin with the rest of us. Of course many of them are quite successful in their roles as shepherd of the flock, counselor, leader, business man and holy man of the cloth--but not a one of them is perfect. Does this book do good things to erase the stigma attached to Catholicism? ...Well, it doesn't. Does it make me want to turn from my faith or love it less?  Of course not. 

So rather than condemn Father Steve for his shortcomings, let's accept him for what he is: a character in a fiction novel.  That is exactly what our group tried to do as we moved into discussion about the novel.  There was plenty to talk about and we used the reader's guide found at the end of the novel to frame our discussion.

Our discussion was lively! And here are some questions that we considered:

Should priests be allowed to marry? Is there merit to having them serve unmarried? Do you think that Catholic priests will ever be allowed to marry?

This is surely not a dilemma that would be solved around the table by a bunch of bookworms, but it was interesting to hear varying opinions of our members. And the answers ranged!

Is the practice of living a life of celibacy antiquated? Is there merit to that practice?

Some of us could see the merit in it although many of us agree that it is a difficult thing to expect of our religious. We all agree that it isn't for everyone and a certain discipline is required to achieve it, but some of us stated that marriage, and sex for that matter, have a complexity of their own that require focus, discipline and attention in order to thrive.  Can a person dividing their focus between marriage (and family) and leading a church truly give all that is required to their flock?  Surely, we can see many examples of successful protestant churches putting this into practice, so it becomes an interesting debate.  Does it simply come down to "this is the way it always has been and always will be?"

Do you think Father Steve was ever meant to be a priest to begin with?  Did he enter the priesthood for the right reasons?

Most of us believed that Father Steve misread his calling and was a little dense to begin with.  We don't think he was ever meant to be a priest and thus his resolve to his calling was not strong and he then became more prone to fall into the temptation surrounding him.  He was merely escaping from failed relationships and a lack of any future prospects.

Do you think that he ever had a chance at resisting Vicky? At what point do you think he was a goner?

Not a chance and from the start.  When you aren't where you are supposed to be, the universe has a way of realigning itself so that you get to where you are meant to go.

In addition to these questions we also examined the various relationships in the book i.e. Steve and Miss Rita, Steve and Mark, Steve and B.P. etc.

Whew! Care to weigh in on any of these? Do so, in the comments section and feel free to tell us what you thought of this month's selection. 

And now for a bit of housekeeping...

Next month we are reading:

The Bronxville Book Club by Pamela Hackett Hobson

Book club recap posts will go live on the Wednesday after the last Monday of the month.

Why do we do that? Our book club meets in the "real world" on the last Monday of the month and I like to post about the book after we meet and talk about it! If you are local and are interested in joining our book club for our monthly meetings, send us an e-mail and we can give you the details.


You can purchase your copy The Bronxville Bookclub  in The More Than Mommies Shop or see our other monthly selections HERE. And then come back next month to join in on the discussion.

If you are just joining us, Welcome. You can learn more about The More Than Mommies Book Club HERE.

Happy Reading!

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