Here's What's Going on at Boswell This Week--Lesley Kagen, Patty Loew, Pamela Hendricks Frautschi, plus The Wisconsin History Tour at MPL.

Monday, January 19, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Our rescheduled event with Lesley Kagen, author of The Resurrection of Tess Blessing

In this poignant novel, 49-year-old Tess sets forth on a mission to complete her final “to-do” list before what she’s sure will be her impending death after she is diagnosed with breast cancer, never thinking that she may have to stick around to deal with her handiwork. Among the things Tess feels she must do before her impending death to cancer are making peace with her estranged sister, saying goodbye to her mother’s long-kept ashes that she keeps in the garage, rescuing her daughter from the grip of an eating disorder, helping her son grow-up, and reigniting the spark in her marriage.

Grace, the story’s narrator, aids Tess on her quest and lends the story its most brilliant elements: subtle magical realism and deep psychological complexity. Is Grace an “imaginary friend,” guardian angel, or a part of Tess who knows better than she? Readers will love this heartwarming, humorous, and slightly magical redemptive story about second chances and realizing what—and who—is really important, before it’s too late.

Restaurateur, actress, voice-over artist and author of several novels, including the bestselling Whistling in the Dark, Lesley Kagen lives in Cedarburg.

Tuesday, January 20, 7 pm, at the Riverside Park Urban Ecology Center, 1500 E. Park Place: A Ticketed Urban Ecology Center Event with Patty Loew, author of Seventh Generation Earth Ethics: Native Voices of Wisconsin Tickets are $10 ($5 for UEC members).

Patty Loew, enrolled member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Ojibwe, chronicles toils and triumphs of caring for the earth from Wisconsin’s Native American Communities, and the philosophy that drives them. Seventh Generation Earth Ethics: Native Voices of Wisconsin profiles a dozen influential members from Wisconsin’s Indian Nations each of whom employ the “Seventh Generation Philosophy” to make environmental decisions based upon how those decisions will impact the land for seven generations to come, some 240 years into the future.

Loew is a professor in the department of life sciences communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and affiliated faculty with the American Indian studies program. Dr. Loew donates 100% of the royalties she would otherwise receive as author of Indian Nations of Wisconsin to the Wisconsin Indian Education Association for scholarships.

Wednesday, January 21, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Milwaukeean Pamela Hendricks Frautschi, author of Claudia: Misguided Spirit

Pamela Hendricks Frautschi, a resident and activist of Milwaukee’s Eastside for fifty years, is currently president of Eastside Milwaukee Community Council (EMCC). The owner of Dance Spectrum in Shorewood for fifteen years, she taught in UWM’s Dance Department, and in public schools in Wauwatosa, Middleton, and Milwaukee.

Her new memoir, Claudia: Misguided Spirit, chronicles the troubled relationship between siblings where one's choice to follow enlightenment created tension for the rest of the family.

And don't forget:

Now on display at Central Library, 814 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, WI through January 29th, the exhibit is located in the 1st floor hallway of Central Library between the Media Room and the main Reading Room.

The Wisconsin History Tour exhibit features:

--Local history photos and stories --Shipwrecks in the deep of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior --History of the Wisconsin Historical Society --National collections of acclaim, right here in Wisconsin --Portraits of the Ho-Chunk Nation --A Civil War soldier’s letters home --Collections that have become Curators’ Favorites --Histories behind Wisconsin Historical Society's historic sites and museums

Here's a list of events. But don't go today; all branches are closed except for the Martin Luther King Library, which has special programming.