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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

If All of Rochester Read the Same Book Group Discussion


Writers & Books has announced that The Buffalo Soldier by Chris Bohjalian is the 2007 selection for “If All of Rochester Read the Same Book….” The English/Philosophy Department and the MCC Libraries are collaborating to sponsor a faculty/staff book discussion of "The Buffalo Soldier," and we hope that you can join us. Please meet on the 4th floor of the LeRoy V. Good Library (Brighton Campus), room 2-440, on Wednesday, February 7, noon to 1:00 pm, for what is sure to be a lively discussion. We will meet again on Wednesday, March 7, 12:00 to 1:00 (2-440) for additional discussion time if the participants deem it necessary. The discussion will be led by Liz Pierce (English/Philosophy) and Lori Annesi (Library). Chris Bohjalian will be visiting the MCC campus Friday, March 16, so make sure you are prepared for this award-winning author’s presentation!

Publishers Weekly summarizes "The Buffalo Soldier":
“The capricious ways of nature frame this eighth novel by the popular Bohjalian (Midwives; Trans-Sister Radio). Several years after the devastating loss of their nine-year-old twin daughters in a flood, Vermont residents Laura and Terry Sheldon decide to adopt a child. When a state agency grants them a taciturn 10-year-old African-American boy on a foster-parent trial basis, they acquiesce, albeit with some reluctance. The trial is no less unsettling for the child, Alfred, who has already endured separations and is aware of his solitary status in the small, white town. What will save the boy, and lend poignancy to the novel, is a growing friendship with an elderly neighbor, Paul, a retired teacher, who accepts him without preconditions. He gives the boy a book about a post-Civil War western black cavalry unit, the Buffalo Soldiers, and a cap with a picture of their buffalo symbol and then invites the boy to learn to ride his horse. Alfred, moved by the book, responds to Paul and begins to break out of his isolation.”

Lori Annesi
Library
01/29/2007