Book Club Night Kit

Sophie, Standing There

Meg Mason

Cozy night

Meg Mason brings her signature blend of aching tenderness and laugh-out-loud wit to a story about a woman caught mid-life, mid-question, standing in the middle of her own story. It is the kind of novel that makes a room of readers go quiet and then all talk at once.

Come Stand Still With Us For An Evening

We are reading Meg Mason's Sophie, Standing There, and we are reading it with pie. Bring your socks, your flagged pages and nothing else.

Reading level: Moderate

Best for: A close-knit club that likes crying a little, laughing a lot, and staying an hour past the official end time

Discussion

Warm-up

1.Where did you read most of this one, and did you have a particular blanket, chair or mug involved? Set the scene for us.
2.Was there a sentence that made you laugh out loud in a room where you were supposed to be quiet? Read it to us if you flagged it.

Digging in

1.The title has someone simply standing there. When in your own life have you felt like you were standing still while everything moved around you, and what eventually got you walking again?
2.Mason writes families that love each other imperfectly and loudly. Which family dynamic in this book felt most like yours, and did that make it comforting to read or a bit tender to touch?
3.This is a book that finds comedy inside sadness. How did that mix sit with you emotionally? Did the humour feel like relief, or like a sore spot being pressed?
4.Was there a small moment of ordinary kindness in this book that stayed with you more than any of the big ones? What was it about that moment?

Going deep

1.By the time you closed the book, did you feel more forgiving of yourself or less? Talk about what in Sophie's story did that to you, without giving away where she lands.
2.Mason seems interested in whether people can be known and loved at the same time. Over the whole arc of this book, what did it make you believe about being truly seen by someone? Keep the final pages for us to feel ourselves.

On the table & to sip

To eat

A big tray of buttered cinnamon toast, cut into fingers

The comfort food of someone being quietly looked after, which is the emotional register of the whole book. Twenty minutes of effort, and the smell does half the hosting.

Creamy chicken and leek pie with a puff pastry lid

A nurturing, slightly indulgent family dinner dish for a novel about imperfect families gathering around a table. One pie, one dish, everyone served.

Lemon self-saucing pudding with cold cream

Sharp and sweet in the same spoonful, exactly like Mason's prose. Also a nod to the Antipodean kitchens her books tend to live in.

To sip

Big pot of strong English breakfast tea, milk jug on the table (no alcohol)

The drink that gets made in this kind of novel whenever anything goes wrong. Pour for each other and let the pot sit between you.

Honey and lemon hot toddy with whisky

Warm, restorative and a little bit medicinal, for a book that is honest about needing to be soothed.

Chilled dry white (Sauvignon Blanc or similar), in whatever glasses you own (no alcohol)

The low-ceremony pour of a long kitchen-table conversation. No decanting, no fuss.