Planning the Perfect Book Club Meeting with Scattered Lights

Guest post by author Steve Wiegenstein

Scattered Lights is a collection of short stories, all set in the contemporary era, and mostly set in the Missouri Ozarks. It hit the literary big time earlier this year when it was selected as a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction, but it’s not an intimidating book in its language or literary aspirations. The people in these stories are ordinary folks, often caught up in situations they can’t control, trying to do their best in difficult circumstances.

Rural folks, and particularly Ozark folks, like things simple. So for a book club meeting about Scattered Lights, think of simple and hearty things. Ozarks cooking is essentially Southern cuisine. Anything Southern will fit the mood! Ham is a favorite meat course, as is barbeque. Ribs, brisket, chicken . . . anything barbequed is a perfect fit. Coleslaw and baked beans are the traditional side dishes, and don’t forget a tray of cornbread. The Ozarks region is now home to several excellent breweries and distilleries, so if you really want to capture the flavor, see if you can locate some beer from Logboat Brewing Company or Big Piney Brewing, The Wood Hat Distillery makes bourbon from heritage varieties of corn that were grown in Missouri in the 1930s, so you can’t get much more authentic than that. For nonalcoholic beverages, mineral water and iced tea fit the mood.

The sound of the Ozarks is bluegrass and Americana! Maybe the best-known Ozarks musicians are the Ozark Mountain Daredevils of the ‘70s and Ha Ha Tonka of today. But if country-flavored rock is not your style, check out the beautiful voice of Marideth Sisco, who can be found on the soundtrack to the movie Winter’s Bone as well as on albums with her band Blackberry Winter. If that voice doesn’t tune you into the struggles of ordinary folk, nothing will.

Scattered Lights will ask you to empathize with a wide variety of characters: religious fanatics, elderly widows, aimless teenagers, caddish seducers, troubled families, insecure professors, and many more. That’s one of the challenges of this collection. It invites readers to get into the minds of people they might be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with. Here are some questions for your group to consider.

1. Of the main characters in these stories, which was your favorite? Which character could you most easily identify with? And which was the most foreign to you?

    

2. Many of these characters seem to be stuck in place, either unable or unwilling to change the situation that troubles them. Do you see this as a flaw of their characters or an understandable part of their lives?

    

3. In “The Fair,” the point of view moves from character to character as the story progresses. Why do you suppose the author chose that unusual storytelling method?

    

4. Although the stories are all set in a particular region, do you see them having wider significance about people and life in general? What main themes do you perceive?

    

5. The collection begins with “The End of the World” and ends with “Signs and Wonders,” both stories about a character envisioning a coming apocalypse. How does the bookending of those two stories reflect on the stories in between?

    

6. In “Weeds and Wildness,” One thread of the story is the difference in generational outlook between Mark and his grandfather. How are they different? Are they all that different?

    

7. In “Unexplained Aerial Phenomena,” Janine tells Woodrow, “The story matters as much to me as the facts.” Does that make sense?

Steve Wiegenstein is the author of Scattered Lights, a collection of short stories that was a finalist for the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction. He also has written three historical novels: The Language of Trees, This Old World, and Slant of Light. Scattered Lights was also named by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as one of its 25 favorite books of 2020. Steve grew up in the Missouri Ozarks, where most of his fiction is set, and worked there as a newspaper reporter before entering the field of higher education. He taught journalism, English, and communication for a number of colleges and universities during his career, but is now retired from teaching and writes full-time. An avid hiker and canoer, he returns to his home region every chance he gets; he also writes and blogs about rural and Ozarks issues at stevewiegenstein.wordpress.com. Scattered Lights is a Pulpwood Queens Bonus Selection for November.

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