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The Book of George by Kate Greathead - May 2025 Book Club Reading

Falselogic

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
The Book of George by Kate Greathead tells the story of a 'George.' What is a 'George?' You probably know one, you could even be one. A 'George' is a young man brimming with potential but incapable of following through; sweet yet noncommittal to their girlfriend; distant from but still reliant on his mother; charming and funny but also dark and brooding. This book is about particular George captured by a series of snapshots over two decades.

Kate Greathead is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, her writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair, and Moth Radio Hour. Her first novel, Laura & Emma, was published in 2018.

I'm almost certain I heard about this book on some segment or show from public radio, could have been NPR, or it could have been PRX, maybe WNYC? I don't recall. The people discussing it did seem to enjoy it, and it really sounded like something I would never pick up at a library or bookstore. And so I added it to an ever growing list of books to try. Turns out I look at that list a lot for Book Club! I hope we enjoy this one.
 
Question for everyone - Would it be better to create these threads earlier so that people can remember to check their libraries so that when the month rolls around they have a better shot of getting a copy aligned with the forum reading?
 
Falselogic said:
Question for everyone - Would it be better to create these threads earlier so that people can remember to check their libraries so that when the month rolls around they have a better shot of getting a copy aligned with the forum reading?
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Well, we do have the thread for the full year so I could set a reminder for myself, but I like the idea of starting maybe a week before the next month?

I'm going to be late starting this one, my library doesn't have an e-book version and I've decided to only bring my Kindle on our Japan trip in May.
 
Falselogic said:
Question for everyone - Would it be better to create these threads earlier so that people can remember to check their libraries so that when the month rolls around they have a better shot of getting a copy aligned with the forum reading?
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Funny, I just posted in the yearly thread asking people to check if their libraries have a long waitlist for June's book, because mine has enough people waiting that I felt like I should put it on hold now. So, maybe?

In any case, I actually saw The Book of George on my library's new release shelf within in the past month or two, so I won't have any trouble getting it in time. I've currently got the only hold on it.
 
My hold wasn't in yet, but I was at the library on my way home today to pick up a different book and decided to check the new releases shelf anyway. Lo and behold, that copy of The Book of George was still there, so I've got it now. Probably going to have to finish the other book I picked up today before I start it, though.
 
Oh hey, there wasn't a wait to reserve this for digital loan, so I actually have it now! I'll probably finish the book I'm currently reading before diving in, but I expect I'll be able to get to this one before the end of the month, for once.
 
I'm about 100 pages into this one and enjoying it so far. I'm two or three years younger than George is supposed to be, and since I'm from New York I've actually seen/experienced a lot of the places and things that he does, during those same years. It's been funny to read about specific streets or stores or whatever, and to be able to think about what they were like at the time. In particular, during the chapter where he and Jenny go apartment hunting, I said to myself "Yep, I've seen all of these apartments". Apartment hunting in the city sucks so bad!
 
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Still waiting for it from the library; there's only one copy, but I'm next in line. We'll see if I can manage it by the end of the month, but I'm definitely doing this anyway.
 
I finished this last weekend and keep forgetting to talk about it.

I enjoyed this one quite a bit, and was pleasantly surprised at how Brooklyn-y it is. In the year the final chapter takes place, George and I were living in the same neighborhood, and I live just a few minutes away from it now. I've been over the bridge where he runs into Jenny for the last time multiple times, and it's a slightly surreal piece of the city. I know a lot of people won't have this experience, but for me all those little details made the book feel that much more real because I've been seeing these places for my entire life.

Throughout the read I found myself constantly reflecting on times in the past when I've been a George, or times since in which I have actively tried not to be one. He is, I think, a cautionary tale; I don't know about most people but I definitely thought "there but for the grace of god go I" more than once during this book. It's really hard to overcome that kind of depressed inertia and I'd be lying if I said I was completely without sympathy for him. You do have to actively work to be better and it doesn't seem like he ever learns how.

Side note: I kind of want to read another version of the book from Jenny's point of view. From the outside it seems kind of absurd that she stays with him as long as she does and I wish we could've gotten a better look inside her mind.
 
According to my kindle, I got about 40% of the way through this one before I hit alt-F4/delete local content (so to speak). Unsatisfied people failing to live their lives is pretty much my least favorite literary genre, which I know from having read a bunch of stuff that my brother recommended to me over the years. I was starting to get mad at both George and the author, so I decided it was probably time to move on.
 
I agree with @lincolnic that this book might have been better if it was from Jenny's point of view. Though, I also don't know if I would find it any more believable. She seemed mostly to exist as a means to explain why George hadn't died of malnutrition already. Her continued support of George strained credulity.

The very last chapter of the book, the one from Jenny's POV is the only time that George approaches being recognized as a human for me.

If this wasn't for book club, I would have probably put it down like @MCBanjoMike. I'm not so against 'sad people fail at life' books as I am the trope character that 'George' exemplifies. I don't understand why this character, the unlikable awful male who never grows up, yet somehow continues to have friends and partners, is so prevalent in our cultural products. I've not like it since I first encountered it in the character of Holden Caulfield. But, there seem to be an awful lot of people who do...

And, you might say I'm not supposed to like Holden, or George, or, or, or. And I don't. But there are a lot of people who do. Who missed the point. Like those who walked away liking Tyler Durden or Patrick Bateman. If the satire is continually taken up as the ideal. Maybe we need to stop using the satire?
 
MCBanjoMike said:
Unsatisfied people failing to live their lives is pretty much my least favorite literary genre
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Falselogic said:
I'm not so against 'sad people fail at life' books as I am the trope character that 'George' exemplifies. I don't understand why this character, the unlikable awful male who never grows up, yet somehow continues to have friends and partners, is so prevalent in our cultural products.
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I basically skimmed this after George got into college for these reasons. The line about no longer doing homework as of sophomore year in high school but then he somehow still got into college was infuriating. And that was early in the book and then things just kept happening where he fucks around yet floats through life and isn't poor and on the street and suffering and I don't understand how. I hate these types of people. I don't understand how they live their comfortable lives without any effort when I am working so hard and dealing with so much to be comfortable. Or I guess maybe he was briefly rich from the commercial, I didn't really care anymore. Like you both said, this trope is not funny anymore, especially post-pandemic when women have had to take on so much more of the invisible chores/unpaid housework and men like this still exist and flourish.

And of course Jenny is enabler but seems to realize it too late. I read her final chapter and it was the most interesting part of the book. A book about her having a real, true awakening to how terrible these relationship dynamics are and how she needs to remove George from her life earlier would have been much more interesting and something I'd have enjoyed reading. Instead this is a book version of a lot of sad manchildren and marriages I see in the world, although I guess it's a slightly happier ending in this book their girlfriend/wife escaped.
 
Violentvixen said:
And that was early in the book and then things just kept happening where he fucks around yet floats through life and isn't poor and on the street and suffering and I don't understand how.
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George's mother's family has money, so I just chalked it up to that.
 
I got the book a little bit too late, but I finally made it. Unorganized thoughts:
* It was a tough read; not that the prose was heavy, but the main character was a lot to put up with
* I have to agree with @lincolnic that there's quite a lot of this could have been me going on; not sure if that says more about me or the book.
* I like how George is obviously a pampered, privileged jerk (Carrie calls out his shit very acutely), but still he does rise to the occasion at times and he's clearly not entirely unlikable (evidenced by how he doesn't manage to alienate everyone in his life)
* Sam from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow came to my mind as a close kindred spirit to George
* It was quite interesting how the book often skipped forward in time without warning, especially past each occurrence when George and Jenny broke up. If the book had been narrated by George, it might have been even more effective, though.
* I guess we're going to start seeing pandemic references in more and more media, huh
 
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