“The Sleeping Father,” written by Matthew Sharpe, Visiting Professor of English, is expected to become the talk of an entire Connecticut town in the next few months.
This past October, Norwalk’s book festival, The Festival of Words, selected Sharpe’s second novel to be the official book of their “One Book, One Community” program.
“Norwalk wanted a community of readers,” Sharpe said. “This [book club] is a way of encouraging people to make literature a part of their lives.”
The “One Book, One Community” program is modeled after large-scale readership programs that exist in cities such as Seattle and Chicago. This program is encouraging book clubs and readers in Norwalk to read “The Sleeping Father,” not only to give the entire community something to collectively talk about, but also to inspire people to become more active readers.
“The National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) did a study on who’s reading literature and found that there has been a massive decline in the amount of people who read for pleasure, for whom reading is a part of what they do with their lives,” Sharpe said. “This is one reason why the One Book, One Community program has sprung up.
Sharpe’s novel, published by Soft Skull Press in October of 2003, has received much publicity in its fifteen months of print. Last year Katie Couric selected the novel for her book club. The novel, Sharpe said, is currently being translated into Dutch and German.
The Festival of Words is April 9 in Norwalk, where Sharpe will participate in a lunch with his readers.
Sonja Ahuja, the Director of the Festival of Words, said that one of her reasons for choosing Sharpe’s novel was for the deep resonance she suspected it would have with the residents of Norwalk.
”The town of Norwalk is adjacent to New Canaan, and as [Sharpe] himself has said, the setting in the book is a fictional town based on the town of New Canaan [where Sharpe attended high school],“ Ahuja said. ”[The novel] has in it these family values that are a part of our times.“
Sharpe admitted that he was pleasantly surprised when he first learned that Ahuja had selected his novel for the ”One Book, One Community“ program.
”I think my book was a brave choice [on their part],“ Sharpe said. ”Some people are on the ironic wavelength that my book is on. Yet, I do think the book deals with the difficulties a whole community could relate to: illness, adolescent angst, social class, racial issues, family life and vicissitudes, religion.“
Ahuja also said that she thought the novel’s theme will get Norwalk residents talking about important issues in their own lives.
According to Sharpe, the New Canaan community had a profound influence on his character
”I think we all participate in multiple communities,“ he said. ”I was also a member of the community of Jews in New Canaan, and despite being Jewish, I was a member of a community of Quaker teenagers who went on retreats in upstate New York, and I was a member of the community of long distance runners in Connecticut and elsewhere, and so on.“
Despite being a part of so many communities, Sharpe still said that there were other communities that he stood outside of.
”But I was also an outsider: a liberal in a predominantly conservative town, a Jew in a largely Christian town, a hippy-artist type among the children of business executives,“ Sharpe said. ”As an outsider, and one who had come from the more ethnically and economically diverse town of Hartsdale, NY, I was attuned to the ways in which others were also outsiders: the black kids at the school, the Italian kids, the kids from working class families.“
It is these multiplicities, perils and pleasures of communities that Sharpe addresses is his fiction.
”The word is being spread via press, via radio,“ Sharpe said. ”I have received word that a number of book clubs have already begun to read the book.“
In addition to Sharpe, Ahuja said that Festival of Words features readings and presentations by novelists, poets, journalists and historians. The festival this year has a multicultural theme and will feature literature by African-American, Native-American, Latino, and European writers.
”We are really trying to bring out as many different voices as possible,“ Ahuja said.
For more information about ”One Book, One Community“ and the Festival of Words, visit www.ctfestivalofwords.com
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