The Oprah Affect: Critical Essays on Oprah's Book Club.

Heaggans, Raphael

The Oprah Affect: Critical Essays on Oprah's Book Club Edited by Cecilia Konchar Farr and Jaime Harker, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008. 357pp. $24.95 paperback.

Farr and Harker's book The Oprah Affect: Critical Essays on Oprah's Book Club appears simple because of their usage of unadorned language. However, upon closer analysis the editors' stance on Oprah's Book Club is much more than a treatise on whether it is a media or literary phenomenon. The editors confirm that the foundation of the Club's literary value lies in the Club's humble beginnings where it coerced on connection through themes of sisterhood and common experiences. These themes served as the springboard to the Club's best-connected works which resulted in being the best-selling. Part of the connection is the diverse community and appeal Oprah's books have. Farr and Harker are convinced that the Oprah Book Club has great potentiality to make even the most reluctant readers desire to read a book from the Club. One central focus of the text is for the reader to consider the impact the crossover appeal the Club has and to re-evaluate of the "purpose of literature in American culture" (1).

However, this book provides some ideologies that are not necessarily intricately and inextricable interwoven with the central theme of the text. For example, the work begins with the findings of a library study by Juliette Wells and Virginia Wells on how Oprah affects what books patrons check out. Although this case study has good merit, Wells and Wells' work does not clearly demonstrate its relevancy to the central theme of The Oprah Affect. Further, their study leaves out pertinent information about the study such as: 1) how many books did patrons have to choose from versus the number of books available in the library; 2) what are the limitations of the study; 3) what biases did the researchers bring to the study that impacts the results of the study, among others.

Contrasted with Yung-Hsing Wu's "The Romance of Reading Like Oprah", Wu establishes the argument that the Club "creates a communal experience for reading without standardized that experience" (6). However, Oprah establishes a standard and a criterion for what books she wants as a part of her Club. In that regard she provides a script for how the reading experience was to her and how others should share a similar sentiment. Wells and Wells' study is buttressed by the communal experience the Club creates as charged by Wu, but at what point does Oprah's influence relinquish to individual reader choice unadulterated by what the standard--Oprah--suggests?

Kelley Penfield Lewis' conflicting narratives in the Oprah Book Club provides an answer to this question by providing a differing perspective that presents added complexity to the text. Lewis posits that "the revelation of intimate secrets is consistently treated as an empowering process that allows others to identify with the speaker" (213). Hence, Oprah has "effectively written an 'Oprah narrative' into the American (and possibly international) public consciousness" (212).

Overall, Oprah's Book Club may have gotten familiar but never stale as Farr and Harker explicates. The saccharine smile on the cover of the book invites the reader to reflect on how the Club and the talk show Diva impacts her listenership and readership across multicultural boundaries. Kimberly Davis' entry into Farr and Harker's text entitled, "Oprah's Book Club and the Politics of Cross-Racial Empathy" argues that the impact is influenced by gender identification which helped women across races re-evaluate their positions on race and colorblindness. Because of female solidarity, Oprah's Book Club is able to corral its readers into thinking about race, gender, socioeconomics, and other types of diversity in order to help them to see how these differences impact what they think about the differences.

With the exception of Wells and Wells' "Oprah in the Public Library," each chapter in the text buttresses the themes of subsequent chapters. Solidly, Farr and Harker's The Oprah Affect: Critical Essays on Oprah's Book Club has much intellectual heft substantiated by critiques that are profoundly thought-provoking. Its arguments clearly present what impact the Oprah Affect has on its readers and viewers.

Raphael Heaggans

Niagara University