Book Club Sends Goons To Intimidate Inactive Members Into Joining Mailing List

Last week, several inactive members of the UI Book Club were alarmed to find three thuggish goons waiting outside their residences. Sophomore Hailey Post, the only Book Club member willing to speak to us, relayed the startling experience.

“As a 20 year-old white girl who’s never been in the mob or visited New Jersey, the last thing I expected to see when I opened my front door is three heavyset men in tracksuits waiting outside with their arms crossed,” Post said. “They were either Italian, Russian, or Irish, or one of each, but that’s beside the point. One of them got right in front of the doorway and was all, ‘You Hailey? We hear you ain’t been showin’ up to book club recently, so we just figured we’d come check in on ya, ‘cause ya must not know about all the valuable discouhse ya missin’ out on, or you’d be showin’ up to meetins like ya said ya would at the beginning of the semestah.’”

Post mentioned that at one point, one of the goons took out a tasseled bookmark and began to slap it against his hand, an action that she believes was designed to intimidate her.

“Club’s aboutta staht a whole section on Jane Austen,” the goon reportedly told her. “We’re stahtin’ with Sense and Sensibility and then movin’ on to Pride and Prejudice, so we can figyah out how they influenced the increased use of free indirect discouhse in literature durin’ the ninetheenth century – don’t ya wanna be a paht of that? We want ya to be a paht a that, ‘cause that makes us feel like we can rely on ya, ya know what I’m sayin’? Other guys in the Book Club want to feel like we can trust ya, and when you don’t respond to the emails, I’m not sayin’ we can’t, but…”

Post explained that the three men launched into a spirited discussion of the importance of feminist authors during this time period, mocking a certain Johnny “Three Fingers” Cabernecci who had parroted analysis on feminist themes in Emma from a Wikipedia article and presented it as his own at last week’s meeting.

According to Post, the goons handed her an unsealed envelope before they left, telling her she should know what to expect if they had to return. Inside was a pair of broken reading glasses.

“I was more confused than anything else, especially by the end part, since I don’t wear glasses. But it definitely got me to start going to meetings again. I’m starting to see their point about how great Jane Austen novels are.”