Literary Fiction · Free kit
The Great Wherever
A year after her father's death, debt-burdened Aubrey Lamb inherits his stake in a Tennessee farm she has never seen. She meets cousins she barely knows while four ancestor ghosts — gossipy, sharp-eyed, and tied to the land — watch a sale of the farm loom. Shannon Sanders's debut novel moves from contemporary Washington, D.C., back through Thomas Lamb, one of the first Black landowners in his community, and a family tragedy that still decides who gets to stay.
“The dead are relentless gossips, or at least these dead are.”
Complete free book club kit
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Plan your meeting
The Great Wherever Hosting Guide
A free, printable-minded plan for hosting The Great Wherever.
Invite hook
“Four gossipy ghosts, a Tennessee farm, and a living woman with rent due. Come talk about The Great Wherever — bring a take on what we owe the dead.”
The question you’re arguing about: If you inherited land you had never seen, and selling it would erase your debt, would you take the money — or keep a promise someone else made?
Shopping list
- □A pitcher of sweet tea and a pot of coffee
- □Lemonade, juice, and sparkling water
- □Fried chicken and cornbread for a Lanyer County porch table
- □Peach cobbler or a simple peach crisp — nothing fancy
- □Biscuits and honey, plus a bowl of blackberries or serviceberries if you can find them
- □A printed Sears-style house sketch labeled The Aubrey for the table (the surprise touch)
- □A few smooth stones or a small bowl of water as a pond nod — no candles in the "water"
- □Printed bingo cards and extra pens
Day-of timeline
- 0–10 minWelcome & icebreakers (readers, not spoilers — keep the pamphlet, the pond death, and the notary off the welcome mat)
- 10–20 minTrivia warm-up — D.C. gigs, four ghosts, 1933, Sears house, Hays's email
- 20–50 minMain discussion (start with the unread papers and Bellamy; save Joah, the fence, The Aubrey, and the deed for last)
- 50–65 minSpeed debate: ghosts' claim vs living rent, or whether selling to Hays is a win
- 65–75 minBingo, one-word rating, pick next month
Surprise touch
Leave a small card at each seat printed like a 1933 Sears house listing: model name The Aubrey, wraparound porch, mail-order kit. Guests can flip it only after discussion starts. It is the novel's quiet joke as an object — not a lecture, just the house that named her.
Wrap-up
- □Group photo with the house-listing cards and the pitcher of sweet tea in the frame
- □Quick rating round: 1–5 stars and one word each (expect "gossipy," "heavy," and "I would have sold")
- □Vote on next month's book together