Book Club

Senior Planet Book Club: Week 1

Welcome to our first week’s discussion of…

Tepper Isn’t Going Out by Calvin Trillin

We read Chapters 1-11 this week. What did you think? What are you liking so far? What questions are popping up for you?

Start discussing in the comments below!

 

For next Tuesday, April 21, we’ll read chapters 12-22. Come back to seniorplanet.org/articles/online-book-club/ and we’ll open a conversation in the comments so everyone can discuss what we read! 

Haven’t gotten your copy yet? Click here to see how you can join the discussion.

COMMENTS

12 responses to “Senior Planet Book Club: Week 1

  1. I am lifelong Manhattanite so the many NYC references and types make sense ro me, make me laugh, etc. I was fortunate to have a garage in my building during the years when I had a car but I have my share of parking stories. I suffer from narcolepsy. So I would often park the car, put money in the meter and take a nap. That said, about the book. I found myself making some observations again and again. These include:

    In the way that Elmore Leonard captured the language of his cons and mostly blue collar workers, Trillin is acutely sensitive to the language and mind-set of New-York-Times/New Yorker readers who are, I believe, his his fan-base. (He’s equally good, mind you, with civil servants and NYC blue collar folk too.)

    Tepper’s responses, which are always basic but logical, brought to mind Chaucey Gardiner, although again a more upper-class, or at least educated version.

    We’ll have to read on to find out the “meaning” of parking and not getting to Tepper (if in fact Trillin chooses to give us won). Maybe it’s Tepper’s “Rosebud,” a kind of Maguffin that doesn’t really explain much at all.

    I’m wondering if anyone recognized some of the characters, the authencity of language, the irony of the Catch-22 categories. After all, life is very big, we’re small, we’re only here for a short time–so the meaning of life is illusive.

    Freaky, no, that the mayor, while I’m assuming he’s a riff on Guiliani, captures Donald Trump to a tee–14 years or so before anyone would have placed him in the political arena?

    I’ve got a few more but I’m waiting until the end . . . .

  2. As a New Yorker from the L.E.S I am enjoying this book and can totally relate to finding parking and not giving it up even when you have paid monthly parking. Finding a spot is priceless it’s like winning the lottery. And people’s reactions are spot on. I love his calmness and willingness to just listen. Everything is so relatable. Even the remark from the reporter who said they renamed the L.E.S The East Village. Pretty funny but accurate.

  3. As someone who lives in Texas, it is hard to imagine what people go thru to find a parking place since this problem is mainly in our downtown areas of our larger cities like Houston, Dallas, etc.
    Tepper is a good listener and I like the relationship between the folks at the Jewish deli -first one of the clerks then another. The article that one of them wrote about Tepper and his parking was a great piece because Tepper’s brief encounters with some of these folks had such a postitive lasting impression. Most of Tepper’s encounters even with coworkers give people postitive advice. Since I haven’t been to New York in over 20 years the geographic borough information, I cannot really appreciate but I bet New Yorkers can.

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