Holly Springs Lit Club

Meet up ane discuss the novel Beloved, a powerful and haunting novel published in 1987 that explores the psychological and emotional impacts of slavery through the story of Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman living in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her daughter Denver in the years following the Civil War. The narrative weaves between past and present, examining how trauma from slavery continues to affect both individuals and communities long after emancipation.

The book is inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner, though Morrison creates her own distinct narrative. Morrison employs magical realism and non-linear storytelling to examine themes of motherhood, identity, memory, and the ways in which people cope with and attempt to heal from profound trauma. The novel is renowned for its lyrical prose, complex characters, and unflinching examination of slavery's lasting impact on American society.

The book won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and played a significant role in Morrison being awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It's considered one of the most important works of 20th-century American literature.

Big Swiss follows Greta, a woman in her forties who works as a transcriptionist for a sex therapist in Hudson, New York. Through her job, Greta becomes obsessed with listening to the sessions of one particular client—a woman she nicknames “Big Swiss” for her statuesque appearance and Swiss accent. Big Swiss discusses her past trauma and unconventional relationship with her much older husband.

When Greta encounters Big Swiss (whose real name is Flavia) in real life at a dog park, she impulsively strikes up a friendship without revealing that she knows intimate details about Flavia’s life from the therapy sessions. This deception becomes increasingly complicated as their relationship deepens into a sexual affair, with Greta continuing to transcribe Flavia’s therapy sessions while simultaneously becoming involved in her personal life.

The novel explores themes of intimacy, privacy, and the ethics of emotional voyeurism.

Schattenfroh by Michael Lentz is a mammoth experimental German novel, originally published in 2018 and translated into English by Max Lawton in 2025 by Deep Vellum. The title is a German neologism combining “shadow” and “joy.” This meet up will be split into two sessions to accommodate the size of the novel.

The narrator, called “Nobody” (Niemand), is held captive in a dark room in complete isolation, wearing a face mask equipped with technology that harnesses his thought processes into what he calls “brainwater script”

His jailor, named Schattenfroh—who is by turns God, the Devil, and Nobody’s already dead father—leads the mysterious Frightbearing Society, which hopes the encyclopedic book Nobody writes will serve as the society’s foundational, quasi-religious text.

Nobody’s mission is to “write everything down from the beginning,” following the historical arc of the city of Düren from 748 to 2018—from its first documented reference to its complete destruction in 1944 during an Allied bombing that killed 3,127 people.

Schattenfroh by Michael Lentz is a mammoth experimental German novel, originally published in 2018 and translated into English by Max Lawton in 2025 by Deep Vellum. The title is a German neologism combining “shadow” and “joy.” This meet up will be split into two sessions to accommodate the size of the novel.

The narrator, called “Nobody” (Niemand), is held captive in a dark room in complete isolation, wearing a face mask equipped with technology that harnesses his thought processes into what he calls “brainwater script”

His jailor, named Schattenfroh—who is by turns God, the Devil, and Nobody’s already dead father—leads the mysterious Frightbearing Society, which hopes the encyclopedic book Nobody writes will serve as the society’s foundational, quasi-religious text.

Nobody’s mission is to “write everything down from the beginning,” following the historical arc of the city of Düren from 748 to 2018—from its first documented reference to its complete destruction in 1944 during an Allied bombing that killed 3,127 people.