Summer reading: Why we need to talk about novels

Things are a little crazy out there right now as the political primary season slouches toward its finish. Apocalyptic thinking rages with passionate intensity; demagoguery runs rampant. But even in this wildest of political seasons, it's comforting to know that nothing, not even W.B. Yeats' collapsing center, can stop Americans from compiling our summer reading lists.

In Minnesota, as soon as we pull out the patio furniture and hang the hammocks, we begin to ask, "What should I read?" As Memorial Day rolls past, summer reading recommendations are everywhere — all over the internet, the magazine racks, the morning talk shows. You want beach reads, pleasure reads, lengthy classics to get lost in (or slog through), lists for every child at every age? Look around. Right now, you can find them all.

Last summer I read "The Girl on the Train." Didn't everyone? I learned to pronounce Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, so I could tell everyone how great her novel "Americanah" is. I spent hours engrossed in Elena Ferrante's "Neapolitan Novels." And when I go to the coffee shop or out for drinks, when I stick around after my literature classes or hang out at backyard barbecues, I talk about Adichie or Ferrante again and again. "What did you think?" people want to know. Because I'm a literature professor, because I love novels.

What did I think? What do I mean when I say something is "good" (as "Girl on the Train" is good — and "Americanah" is very good)? Why do novels like these, conversations like these, matter in times like these?

Nearly every answer I can come up with finds me falling into clichés: because books open our world, fuel our curiosity, sharpen our imagination and expand our minds. Books help us connect with all sorts of people we might never meet otherwise.

But there's more to the story of novels in our diverse and divided nation.

For example, it's been nearly 20 years since the summer Harry Potter first appeared in our beach bags. Through seven books and eight movies and soon to be three theme parks, we have developed not only a shared vocabulary of wizards and Muggles and Voldemort, but also a shared understanding of how good people react in times of terror, how friends stick together and are each stronger because of it, how mothers love fiercely, how there are things worse than death, and how, ultimately, the generous people win.

Turns out, we all agree that love is our most deeply held value and that our projected desires for a better world look a lot alike — and this across serious divides of religion and politics, from conservative Mormons to lefty feminists and everything in between. Those Konchar kids — now a nurse, a restaurant manager, an electrician, a long-haul trucker, a real-estate agent, a print-shop supervisor and this professor — grew up reading and talking about books, and, in that beach house, we bridged some of the divides that our separate lives have created by reaffirming connections over Harry Potter.

As this time of summer reading begins, as the pundits promise us a vitriolic election season ahead, I like to remember that Americans are practiced at reaffirming our values and making sense of our world by talking about novels. We pioneered book clubs and invented bestsellers. We have broached some of our most difficult national conversations over "Roots," "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," over "Catch-22" and "Fear of Flying." Right now, right here, we're talking about "See No Color" and "The Song Poet."

The precipices that our political parties teeter over, the chasms that separate our neighborhoods are the same divides that could have toppled my family reunion. But they didn't. We found ways to talk with one another when we talked about books.

And that's how Americans at church suppers and farmers markets, on beach towels and deck chairs will be doing the vital connecting work of democracy this summer. We will talk about novels. I'm pretty sure our conversations will be more gracious when the subject is Alex Kirtridge, Hermione Granger or Ifemelu than when it's Donald Trump.

And if that means we can tame Yeats' rough beast for a few months, putting off the arrival of his destructive day a little longer, all the better. Welcome to summer reading, America. Let's talk.