Book Club Review: "The Only Woman in the Room"

The Book Club meets at the David R. Kahn Community Campus on the 1st Monday of every month over lunch. This year, we are excited to share a summary of their thoughts on the selected books.

The JCC Book Club discussed The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict our meeting on Monday September 11.  We thank Miriam Barker for the terrific job she did leading the discussion, providing  us with some of Hedy Lamar's film clip sound bites, Hedy's photos, and even Vienna Finger cookies to munch on to remind us of Hedy's beloved Vienna.  

Our discussion explored  Hedy's complicated connection to Judaism, her first marriage to an abusive husband who was a Nazi arms  dealer, and her brilliant scientific life as an inventor. But our discussion sparked conversation about issues beyond Hedy and her times, like how being female barred her from the male-dominated scientific world. Unfortunately, that happened to some of us, when back in the day we were exploring careers. Even today, being highly intelligent can still be discounted if one is a woman. 

In rating the book most of us felt that fact wasn't dealt with seriously enough. We talked about how the author took liberties with embroidering the facts to weave fiction.  Although a shortcoming of the book, and perhaps the genre of Historical Fiction, most of us enjoyed the read and rated it 3.5 or 4 out of 5, but one of us gave it only a 1. 

The next meeting of the JCC Book club is Monday Oct. 2 when Amy Bush will lead the discussion of My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert. Be forewarned, this is a steamy read!

For questions about Book Club, contact Adult Engagement Coordinator Maxine Carr at Maxine.Carr@ShalomRaleigh.org.