Book Club

Sun., Dec. 20, 1998

Name: First Wednesday Reading Group

City: Chewelah, Wash.

Group history: Formed Aug. 31 at Chewelah’s Go West Bookstore. Membership ranges from five to 12 depending on the book. Held monthly at the store, says owner Mary Ann West, “because it was central and that way nobody has to clean house.”

Book reviewed: “Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb” (Vintage Books, 560 pages, $15 paper, ISBN 0-3757-0-2695) by Bernard Lefkowitz.

Contact person: Mary Ann West.

The review: Lefkowitz’s book involves the small town of Glen Ridge, N.J., the hometown of movie star Tom Cruise. It’s an affluent community, the kind of place where basic family values are stressed. And yet it’s where a group of high school football stars raped a girl with a developmental disability, using a baseball bat and a broomstick. “The attitude of the town where the crime took place was, ‘Oh, such a tragedy for these boys,”’ said West. “It made a fascinating read.” Is also tells a disturbing story, West said. So disturbing, she added, that “Some people chose not to read it.”

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