Monday Event Preview for June 4-10. Stieg Larsson's Partner Eva Gabrielsson on Wednesday, Plus Bonnie Jo Campbell and Natalie Bakopoulos on Friday.

We’ve got two great events for you this week!

Wednesday, June 6, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Eva Gabrielsson, author of There are Things I Want You to Know About Stieg Larsson and Me, in Conversation with Mitch Teich, of WUWM’s Lake Effect. Tickets for this event are $5 and can be purchased in store, or on our website. Tickets cannot be held for later purchase, and are not refundable. However, you will be able to use your ticket for $5 off the cost of There are Things I Want You to Know About Stieg Larsson and Me through June 30.

Needless to say, with Millennium Fever sweeping the world for the past two years, Gabrielsson has been besieged with interviews. There was the unfinished fourth manuscript, and disagreement over how Larsson’s fortune would be divided, being that Larsson, who died of a heart attack in 2004, and Gabrielsson never married. We are so pleased to be hosting Gabrielsson on her paperback book tour.

Is Mikael Blomkvist a stand-in for Larsson himself? How about Lisbeth Salender? It would take longer than a blog post to analyze that question. Gabrielsson does note that Larsson and Saldender both shared a preference for fast food pizzas.

This is probably your only opportunity to see Gabrielsson. The odds of her returning to Milwaukee from Sweden seem pretty thin.

Friday, June 8, 7 pm, at Boswell, The Mighty Michiganders:
Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Once Upon a River, American Salvage, and Q Road
and
Natalie Bakopoulos, author of The Green Shore.

I’ve already dedicated a day to the merits of The Green Shore. However, I should also point to my Indie Bound rec, which is featured in the June flyer.

“As we follow the current economic travails of Greece, it is hard not to recall its turbulent history, particularly The Regime of the Colonels that ruled from 1967 to 1974. Bakopoulos humanizes this period through the eyes of one family -- a widowed doctor, her three children, and her brother, a notorious local poet. The personal and political mash up in this passionate story, at once a tale of a particular place and time, yet also a timeless mirror of the struggles of life under any repressive government. A compelling read.” -- Daniel Goldin, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI
#1 pick for the month of June is Richard Ford’s Canada. Catch the rest of the bookseller recs here.

But I haven’t said enough about Bonnie Jo Campbell, returning to Milwaukee for her acclaimed novel, now in paperback, Once Upon a River.

The Journal Sentinel swooned over the most recent novel. Not only was there a rave review from Mike Fischer. Here’s a short excerpt: “There's plenty that's ugly on Margo's river, from the pollution within it to some of the people living along it. But there is also great natural beauty--keenly observed and described with a tender regard reminiscent of the best of Berry or Stegner. And there are wonderfully rendered, life-affirming relationships with careworn housewives, old men and faithful dogs ---themselves bookended by loving memories of those who have died and barely articulated dreams regarding those still to come.

And here are some interesting details you can pick up in Jim Higgins’s two published pieces about Bonnie Jo Campbell.
1. Campbell was just short of getting her PhD in mathematics at the University of Chicago.
2. Like her heroine Margo Crane, Campbell knows her way around a gun.
3. Campbell lived for a short time in Riverwest, at which time she took classes at UWM.

The Campbell profile from Jim Higgins in the Journal Sentinel.

Campbell and Bakopoulos are both in these parts for the Printer’s Row Lit Fest over the weekend. Campbell is appearing in conversation with Jesmyn Ward, author of the National-Book-Award winning novel, Salvage the Bones, which we’re discussing tonight (sans me) at our in-store lit group, 7 pm. Alas, her Chicago appearance is sold out for advance tickets, but they do take a certain number of walk ups.

I think Ward and Campbell are a good match, as she is also a Mighty Michigander, at least regarding her MFA credentials.

And Bakopoulos is on a panel on June 9 with our pal Samuel Park, Marisel Vera, and Brigid Pasulka. That one still has advance tickets.