That one guy at book club who argued the author's footnote was the REAL story

He pulled out a highlighter and went on for 15 minutes about a single asterisk on page 47, and I swear the room went silent like we were in a courtroom. Has anyone else had a book club member treat a footnote like it's the actual plot?

2 comments

2 Comments

robinc661mo ago

Oh man, that sounds brutal. I've totally been there with someone who just wouldn't let go of some tiny detail nobody else cared about. It's like they think they're the only one who "gets" the book on some deeper level, and everyone else is just missing the point. I remember one time at my old group, this guy spent like 20 minutes arguing that a character's dog's name was a secret clue to the whole mystery. The rest of us just wanted to move on to the next chapter, but he was convinced he had cracked the code or something. It really sucks the fun right out of the room, doesn't it? Hope your group recovers from that one, seriously.

the_claire1mo ago

Did your friend ever try just politely asking if they could table the theory for after the meeting? I had a buddy who got stuck in a similar loop with someone overanalyzing the color of a door in a movie, and the only way out was a gentle "let's circle back later" so everyone could breathe.