Discussion Notes: Tram 83 Next month’s novel: God Help the Child by Toni Morrison Rated: Explicit This month we discuss Tram 83 with John McCoy, host of Sophomore Lit, a podcast about your tenth grade reading list. Follow John on twitter @tracemcjoy Join John and Anais as they discuss Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s debut novel Tram 83. Set in a fictional city-state in Western Africa, the novel shares a name with a frenetic jazz club where alcohol and sex transact like currency. The hosts analyze Fiston’s unique prose and shifting tone. While, the narrator and point of view confound, they charm. Anais struggled to find the protagonist’s goal. Meanwhile John debated whether or not the characters represents individuals, or archetypes. To what extent does the novel echo the real world’s West African history? Does a setting like Tram 83 exist? How much of the story should be interpreted as allegory to the real world, and how much of it should be enjoyed as hyperbolic fiction? If you have any comments, please share your thoughts in the comment section below. Or, if you prefer, leave a voicemail by clicking on the feature to the left. By the way, we may play your voicemail on our next show, so tell us if you would prefer we did not. We air the first Friday of every month, and discuss the books on Twitter between shows using #LRHBookclub.