What The County's Reading

“There are all kinds of things that libraries offer that [most of] us don’t think about,” says Chelsea Hilton, program coordinator at Leland Township Public Library. And one of those things is collaboration.

Enter Leelanau Community Reads. Leelanau’s community libraries have come together to host their third county-wide book club, culminating in an event with the author at 1pm on Sunday, Nov. 6 at The Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay.

Leelanau Community Reads launched digitally in 2020 in an effort to side-step the pandemic. This year, they’ll go live with their first-ever face-to-face author event – and the committee couldn’t be more excited. “That kind of in-person access is something we’re not used to having in this area,” says Hilton. “We really wanted to embrace [it].”

The event arrives in the wake of similar, large-scale literature events in cities like Seattle and Chicago. “The idea is to foster community through appreciation for reading,” explains Hilton; an impressive feat in Leelanau County, as each of its four public libraries - Leelanau Township Library (Northport), Leland Township Library (Leland), Suttons Bay Bingham District Library (Suttons Bay), and Glen Lake Community Library (Empire) – operate independently. They are, however, “on the same team,” and in that way, collaboration makes sense. “We’re all in this together,” she says. “[The event] is a really easy way for us to come together as part of one big community.”

Event preparations began a month early, when the featured book (this year’s title is Children of the Catastrophe) arrived at participating libraries. “The idea is that each [location] buys a certain number of copies,” says Hilton, the purchase of which supports local bookstores, “and then we also give ten away.”

Each location hosts its own discussion of the book, culminating in the county-wide event, featuring National Writers Series Executive Director Anne Stanton as host. Attendees can look forward to an in-person author conversation, followed by a Q&A roundtable. In a nod to old-school library spirit, the event is free.

Choosing a featured read, for Hilton, might have been the biggest challenge. “There are a lot of things to get right,” she says. For starters, Leelanau’s libraries look for titles with widespread appeal. And per the community-centric theme, they’re also keeping it close to home with titles and authors tied to the state. “We have so much culture in Leelanau County,” she says. “[Doing that] makes it more personal to our region.”

In that regard, this year’s Northport-based author Sarah Shoemaker, was a natural. “We were lucky enough that she had just released her [second] book,” says Hilton. “And we love to celebrate local writers, so [the timing] was perfect.”

Shoemaker has traveled extensively, including prolonged stints in Turkey and Greece (as well as penning a few books, none of which were ever published), prior to studying library science. It wasn’t until she moved to Michigan – and her youngest kids were finally in school - that the concept for Shoemaker’s debut novel, 2018’s Mr. Rochester, hit. “[My] book group at Leelanau Township Library was discussing Jane Eyre, and I thought, someone should write Mr. Rochester’s story,” she says. “I said to myself, I should write that book.”

Released in September, Children of the Catastrophe chronicles a young married couple whose union (and subsequent “garden of children”) paints a picturesque existence on the Mediterranean’s global coast. “[The book] is almost entirely about this family that everybody would like to be a part of,” she says.

Until it isn’t. In twentieth-century Smyrna (the Turkish city of Izmir today), protagonists Vassili and Liana are busy with familial bliss while unrest broils beneath the surface of their city’s opposing political sides. When World War I makes victors of Greece, they decide oil-steeped Smyrna is theirs.

As Shoemaker notes, “That was really the beginning of the animosity between Greeks and Turks.” That hatred comes to a blazing head in the fires, known locally as “The Catastrophe,” that reduce the Greek and Armenian sides of Smyrna to ashes in the 1920’s (and prepare for a shocker of a finale).

 “[I hope the book] opens readers’ eyes to the fact that people all over the world have wonderful lives until they don’t,” Shoemaker says. “We all think we will have a good life if [we] get a better job, or marry the right person. Everybody thinks they know what’s going to happen in their lives, but [nobody] knows what’s going to happen.”