A much bigger group than I'd expected - a round dozen of white, middle-aged+, liberal women. And Bruce. The only man in the room, the only one who was a product of the Great Migration, and even the only native Portlander. It was almost too big a group to hold a discussion.

On the plus side, the language of the book was beautiful, verging on poetic. While it didn't say much that most of us already knew, it did tie all the info together. The three separate narratives interspersed with historical data was seen as either a needless distraction or as a clever way to build narrative tension. On the minus side, some saw the book as overly long and in need of paring. And repetitious. As if she was afraid that you couldn't remember the facts that she'd told you in previous sections.