Billy in the Bread Bin

New prompt.

I’m a book clubber. I appreciate the deadlines, the peer pressure and the chance to talk about fictional characters on a first name basis. (“Ishmael? What a corker.”) It’s nice, after milling around the quiet interior of a novel, to make some noise and gossip about its inhabitants.

I recently attended the monthly meeting of the BCHSBC, or Berkshire County Historical Society Book Club, based in Arrowhead, Herman Melville’s home in Pittsfield, MA. We read works by Berkshire authors past and present (there are many!) or works set in the Shire or those connected to Melville in some form. (A recent favorite was Dayswork.) We kicked off 2024 with Melville’s novella, Billy Budd. This year marks 100 years since its first publication and Arrowhead is making a big deal of this with many events TBA, including a marathon reading of Budd at a local brewery (“Budd and Brew, I believe it’s called.) For Melville followers like me, it’s exciting.

The Marlboro Man as Billy Budd

I located my copy of Billy …