Bristol’s long-awaited, Covid-delayed collective examination of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was held last weekend, Friday April 1 and Saturday April 2. Participants are giving this year’s event enthusiastic reviews.

Started when the author was only 18 and recovering from the death of her first child, the story of Frankenstein began as part of a parlor game challenge in a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva during the wet, gloomy “year without a summer” of 1816, caused by volcanic dust from an Indonesian volcano. The house party, which included Shelley’s lover (and future husband) the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, their host Lord Byron, and Byron’s doctor John Polidori, decided to see who could write the best ghost story.

“It’s safe to say Shelley won that contest,” said keynote speaker Jay Baruch in his opening remarks on Friday night. “It’s a book that captured the imagination like few in history, and we are still talking about it in 2022.”

Baruch is the author of two collections of short stories based on his professional experience, with an upcoming volume of essays, “Tornado of Life, A Doctor’s Journey Through Constraints and Creativity in the ER” that BookFest founder Charles Calhoun suspects will be a landmark in the emerging field of medical humanities.

Saturday presentations, held at Linden Place, included Frankenstein: Composition, Publication, and Reception by Declan Kiely, Director of Exhibitions, New York Public Library; Shelley’s Landscapes by Christoph Irmscher, Distinguished Professor of English, Indiana University; Creativity and The Creature: The Nuts and Bolts of Cinematic Frankensteins by Alexandra Keller, Director, Film and Media Studies, Smith College; and Summing Up the Frankenstein Phenomenon A Panel Discussion with Our Speakers.

"Charles Calhoun and his talented Bristol Book Fest team have an extraordinary ability to bring insightful, sensitive, and interesting speakers to the Bristol Book Fest,” said Caroline Jacobus. “I very much enjoyed the event and wish it had gone on longer."

“The very first thing that was a positive for me was it got me to read Frankenstein,” said Tony Morettini. “I’d never read it, and probably never would have, but am so happy I did. That little 200-page novel is so rich and layered. You get drawn in so completely you forget that what you're reading is a letter of a narration. And the circumstances of it having been written — almost on a bet that only Shelley ended up ‘taking’ makes it even more engrossing."

“The BookFest format was really satisfying, with speakers and topics so diverse. Each speaker approached the book from unexpected angles and made you pay attention in a different way, with so many layers and perspectives."

Bristol BookFest is run by a volunteer Steering Committee including co-founders Calhoun and Joanna Ziegler,  Joan Abrams, Elizabeth Brito, Elisabeth Lavers, Douglas Popovich, Rebecca Riley, Renee Soto, and Amy Vitale.

“The entire BookFest Steering Committee was thrilled to see the audience’s participation and to hear how excited they were to have a new community humanities event in Bristol,” said committee member Amy Vitale. “We knew that there were plenty of book lovers in our community, and the attendees’ reaction to the speakers and the event confirmed their interest in this type of event.  It was wonderful  to be part of that excitement.”

On Thursday evening April 7, the companion film series continues at the Rogers Free Library with a screening of the 2017 film “Mary Shelley” starring Elle Fanning, at 6 p.m. in the Herreshoff Room.

To stay on top of plans for next year, check in at BristolBookFest.com.

“Seriously, a gem of an event,” said Morettini. “Can't wait for next year.”