Oprah Winfrey has selected Douglas Stuart’s John of John as the latest pick for her popular book club.
Stuart’s novel, published Tuesday by Grove, follows John-Calum Macleod, a young, queer art student who returns home to the Outer Hebrides to see his ailing grandmother; once there must navigate his troubled relationship with his father, who has a secret of his own. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “With his gift for creating vibrantly specific characters and settings, Stuart again taps profound human truth.”
Winfrey announced the novel’s selection on CBS Mornings, where she appeared with Stuart. The novelist recalled getting the phone call from Winfrey informing him that she picked his book.
“It’s mind-blowing,” Stuart said. “It’s a Wednesday evening, and you’re sat by your phone, and then you get a phone call, and very quickly you realize, Oh, this really is the real Oprah Winfrey. It was one of the most wonderful and most surreal phone calls of my entire life.”
Winfrey said, “The reason I was so impressed by this novel is that what it takes to repress who you really are, what it takes to do that, means you’ve stifled your life. You’ve been enslaved to somebody else’s idea of who you should be, instead of being who you should be. That’s why I find the novel liberating for people who have been suppressing themselves.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
