Berg crafts a comfortable ‘Club’

It all started innocently as the Third Sunday Supper Club, a companionable evening that evolved into a confidence-sharing, soul-baring session. None of these confessions is too shocking — no murder, no infidelity. Lacking true scandal, the members live by the motto “The truth is always interesting,” and you’ll nod along with that as Gretchen admits her wish to divorce her children. But the Confession Club only forms the framework of this tale, serving as provocateur, comic relief, affirming Greek chorus.

The real story is Iris Winter’s. Floundering and pushing 50, Iris has found in Mason, Mo., a respite from the big city and a bad marriage. Hardly able to boil water when she arrived, she’s built a thriving bakingclass business from scratch.

She feels safe, settled. But life cooks up a surprise.

His name is John, and a handsomer, handier, more poetic drifter you’ll never meet. Courtship with a homeless man who suffers Vietnam-spawned PTSD isn’t all poetry, of course.

You needn’t have read the previous Mason installments to savor “The Confession Club.” Berg’s language is gentle, her stories complex: simple outside and rich inside, like a pound cake from Iris’ kitchen.