Drunken Spelunker's Guide to Plato

July 27, 2015
Giuffre (An Afternoon in Summer) presents a novel of love and life that is humorous and delicate. The regulars at the Cavern Tavern in the small southern town of Waterville, located somewhere in the Appalachian Piedmont, partake of all the quirkiness expected of literary denizens of dive bars in the South. The residents of the Cave and its related institutions—Tia Tortilla’s, just down the alley, and Commie Tom’s Hammer and Sickle Bookstore, across the street—welcome newcomer Josie into their community when she arrives in town. Josie has left home and is looking for direction in her life. After taking up a position as bartender in the Cave, Josie learns that “there is enormous comfort to be had in friends who see the worst of you and do not turn away.” Passages drawn from Plato’s allegory of the cave and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology weave through the story, elevating Josie’s struggles to the level of the universal. This is warm, sweet, and inviting, like pie fresh from the oven.

July 1, 2015
A young woman living in a college town in the early 1990s learns about life, love, and ancient Greek philosophy in this episodic, often comic tale.Giuffre's first novel is set in the not-so-distant past: "This was in the days when nighttime used to mean something," reads the first line of the first chapter. Quickly, it establishes the setting, a small college town in the Southern United States called Waterville, and tips its hat that bars will play a significant role in the events that follow. Giuffre's academic work has focused on social networks, and that focus on communities is reflected here: through the eyes of narrator Josie, the reader is introduced to the employees and patrons of a couple of loosely connected local businesses. At the center is a bar called the Cave; interspersed with scenes from Josie's life are musings on Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," along with selections from Greek mythology that complement the plot. It isn't always subtle, but Josie's method of retelling these stories develops its own charms. There's also a dramatic reason for it: she's been given books on the subject by Tom, the proprietor of a bookstore in town called the Hammer and Sickle. "Commie Tom was sincerely concerned about the inconvenience he was inadvertently causing to people who were trying to buy hammers," Giuffre writes in one of the novel's more wryly funny passages. Scenes involving the community's reaction to the Gulf War add some drama, though personifying all the villainous aspects of the group in one patron undercuts it somewhat. With its evenhanded narrator, this low-key novel succinctly evokes the supportive dynamics of the community at its heart.

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September 15, 2015

For those of us who have squandered a year or more of our lives hanging out in one campus dive or another, this first novel from a writer with a list of scholarly publications delivers a pang of recognition. Josie, a spirited 21-year-old who leaves her unhappy home in the Tennessee hills, is intent on finding work in the small town of Waterville as a barmaid and part-time clerk in a radical book store. She spends much of her free time reading Plato in a dank basement bar called the Cave, and her narrative is interspersed with snappy philosophical analysis as she comes to see her world in Platonic terms. Her friends, bartenders and local musicians, are not mere shadows on the wall, however; Josie has a knack for finding something noble in folks whom more judgmental people would dismiss as lowlife characters, and she makes a place for herself in this community. VERDICT Josie's voice is a confection: wry, sweet with Southern humor, and wise beyond her years. Both thoughtful and poignant, this is a novel readers can savor.--Reba Leiding, emeritus, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA

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