Bill Zafferos at Boswell Tonight. plus B.A. Shapiro Next Monday

We're on Summerfest/Fourth of July event mini-break.

Tuesday, July 2, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Bill Zaferos, author of Poison Pen.

Milwaukee author Zaferos appears with his debut novel that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Thomas Peele calls a tour de force.

Poison Pen is the absurdist tale of redemption about a depressed game show host known for his cruel on-air insults and crude behavior. The story, as told by a misanthropic poison-pen-letter writer, offers an off-beat look at American culture while exploring themes of life, death, and the deeper meaning of 1960’s television shows like The Beverly Hillbillies.

Jerry Most is the acidic MC of Die Trying, a game show in which players perform death-defying acts for fabulous cash and prizes. But Jerry has had enough of his lavish lifestyle. Seeking inner meaning during a cross-country sojourn, he lands in Hammertown, a miserable northern Wisconsin burg, and Jerry encounters an offbeat cast of characters that help him begin to find redemption.

Bill Zaferos is an award-winning journalist and first-time novelist who managed to channel mental illness into creativity by writing Poison Pen during a manic high.

And don't forget about...

Monday, July 8, 2 pm, at Boswell and 6:30 pm at Elm Grove Library:
Book Club Afternoon featuring BA Shaprio, author of The Collector’s Apprentice, with recommendations from Daniel Goldin

Boswell presents two presentations featuring book club recommendations from Boswell’s proprietor Daniel Goldin and a fascinating talk by BA Shapiro, author of The Art Forger and The Muralist. At the 6:30 program, Daniel will be joined by Elm Grove Library’s Noah Weckwerth.

Shapiro will chat about her latest, The Collector’s Apprentice, a clever, complex tale of art fraud, scandal, and revenge that opens a window into the mystery and glamour of the art world of Paris in the 1920s.

Here's a recommendation from Boswellian Kay Wosewick, who helps organize our book club program: "Dive into the rapidly evolving art world of the 1920s with B.A. Shapiro’s latest book. The Paris art scene is vividly drawn with the likes of Henri Matisse and Gertrude Stein. Better yet, complex ideas about influences and confluences within the remarkable Post-Impressionist art world are folded seamlessly into the dialogue. You’ll be swept into a quiet tale of intrigue starring a rather traumatized young lady from Europe, a savvy con artist from America, and a wealthy American amassing a huge collection of contemporary European art. The story will take you for a couple of unexpected spins before letting you go well satisfied. Shapiro brings this highly-charged era in art alive with dazzling prose and deftly drawn characters."

BA Shapiro is the New York Times bestselling author of The Muralist and The Art Forger, which won the New England Book Award for Fiction and the Boston Authors Society Award for Fiction. Before becoming a novelist, she taught sociology at Tufts University and creative writing at Northeastern University.

Elm Grove Public Library is located at 13600 Juneau Blvd, about two blocks north of the village center.