Book Clubs
See more book love here.
Talking about books is one of the most entertaining, exhilarating, enlightening activities on this planet! Gathering for book club is the icing on the cake, or maybe on the cover if you’re like me and get seconds for dessert.
I would love to visit your book club in person where possible or join you virtually. Click Contact to get in touch. Please include your book club name and location, and feel free to suggest dates/times.
Three Guesses is available anywhere books are sold. If not, just ask for it. Please always support your local, independent bookstores and community libraries.
Check out my Three Guesses Playlist on Spotify to go along with your read. The first ten songs relate to the phases of Sam, Richard, and Pete’s lives throughout the story.
Author Bits
Name: Chris McClain Johnson
Book: Three Guesses, my debut novella at the age of 60 (and it won an award, yay!)
Home: Memphis TN since 1986, grew up in Mayfield KY, graduated from Murray State University in Murray KY
Cats: Kevin (a huge, white male fur ball) and Little Bit (a tiny, timid lady)
Hobbies & Happies: Turning curb finds into shabby chic decor; rearranging furniture and vignettes (there’s nothing like shopping in your own home); making jewelry (though my eyes aren’t that excited about this one these days); binging good TV series; reading-reading-reading; writing-writing-writing; being with family and friends; visiting book clubs, book stores, libraries, or wherever we can have a fun book event.
Writings: In a file box stashed in my writing space are a couple of very old, lofty, epic tales I started decades ago and never finished. These multi-book sagas would need reference lists of names and places and timelines, possibly maps and study guides. Again, lofty, and far beyond my attention level then and now.
Other folders in the box are loaded with stories, poems, music, and screenplay attempts. One of those stories was Three Guesses, too long to be a long short story and too short to be a full-sized novel. Thank goodness it fit perfectly in the novella genre, coming in at just under 40,000 words, and was rained upon with the blessing of Regal House Publishing’s 2023 Fugere Book Prize for Finely Crafted Novellas. Rejected time after time with short story and poem submissions, and here my first attempt at something bigger won a book prize! I couldn’t believe it, especially given the epistolary format. I wasn’t sure if people today even care about the beautiful, old-fashioned art of writing letters.
I’m happy to share more about my somewhat twisted author journey when I visit your book club. Plus, if you’re interested, I’d love to read a couple of very short stories, aka flash fiction, being snuck into a short story collection.
Book Club Talk-Abouts
First of all, THANK YOU for choosing to read Three Guesses. I hope you loved it!
To me, every letter does seem like a story all its own, even Sam’s brief postcard from Somewhere, Iowa. But that’s what novels are—a collection of stories threaded together to give us a tapestry of twists and turns and the totality of a moment or a lifetime. Sam, Richard, and Pete give us the first seven years of their unexpected friendship with a lot to unpack about their lives, in solo and in their long-distance trio.
1. We learn right away they have very different personalities. Aside from the painting Three Guesses, what truly connects them and keeps them communicating? What are they each giving to and getting from this correspondence?
2. Our trio hails from very different places: the South and Southeast, the West and Southwest, the Northeast. If they all lived in the same city, would they be adult friends? What would that look like? What about school friends?
3. Was there a certain time period or a particular letter that turned their correspondence from general information to deep shares? What deep share stuck with you the most?
4. What do you think of Sam taking her pregnant self and then her baby girl on the road alone? What direction might her life have taken otherwise?
5. Did Pete get under your skin a bit? Did your thoughts and perceptions of him change along the way?
6. What reveal or twist truly earned its surprise?
7. What do letters give us—written, sealed, stamped, mailed, read—that we might not get with in-person visits, phone calls, emails, and texts?
8. Does Three Guesses inspire you to write letters? How long has it been since you wrote and sent one by snail mail?
9. For this one, go back in time if needed to avoid sullying your happy conversation with the scam problems of today… What might you share about yourself with a pen pal you’ve never met? What might you ask or hope to be asked?
Check out this Three Guesses Book Club Discussion Guide from the best crew ever from The Worst Book Club Ever in Western Kentucky.
Have you tried Richard’s tequila cocktails? Here’s a little happy from his February 1999 letter: Richard’s Popping Paloma on page 8.
“I expect a word in return from you both since I’ve made the effort yet again to connect. While waiting for your replies, I’m going to pretend it’s summer and have my near-famous Popping Paloma. Try it. I promise you’ll like it.”
For a completely different fizz with crème de cassis, try his Vintage Tequila Sunrise on page 140.
Cocktail recipe? Yes, please!
