Monday, July 19, 2021

This week on the Boswell Zoom website - Elinor Lipman, S.A. Cosby, Mike Gayle, plus Kristin Harmel preview

Here's what's going on this week with Boswell.

Monday, July 19, 7 pm
Elinor Lipman, author of Rachel to the Rescue
in Conversation with Jane Hamilton
Register for this event here.
Ask for your signed bookplate when ordering.

Join us for an evening with Elinor Lipman, the Countess of Romantic Comedy, for her mischievous novel of political satire. Lipman will be in conversation with her long-time friend Jane Hamilton, acclaimed author of The Excellent Lombards and A Map of the World, recognized by Milwaukee Public Library's Wisconsin Writers Hall of Fame.

Rachel Klein is sacked from her job at the White House after she sends an email criticizing Donald Trump. As she is escorted off the premises, she is hit by a speeding car, driven by what the press will discreetly call "a personal friend of the President." Does that explain the flowers, the get-well wishes at a press briefing, the hush money offered by a lawyer at her hospital bedside?

Rachel’s recovery is soothed by comically doting parents, matchmaking room-mates, a new job as aide to a journalist whose books aim to defame the President, and unexpected love at the local wine store. But secrets leak, and Rachel’s new-found happiness has to make room for more than a little chaos. Will she bring down the President? Or will he manage to do that all by himself?

Laurie Hertzel at the Star Tribune writes that "Elinor Lipman's latest novel, Rachel to the Rescue, might not stand the test of time, but for this particular time, it's hilarious," going on to call it "a great novel for a long and lazy summer afternoon."  And Beck Dorey-Stein called it "an entertaining romp of a political satire" in The New York Times

And event with either Elinor Lipman or Jane Hamilton is always a treat. But together? Not to be missed.

Tuesday, July 20, 7 pm
SA Cosby, author of Razorblade Tears
in Conversation with Carole E Barrowman for a Virtual Event
Register for this event.
Ask for your signed bookplate.

We welcome back SA Cosby, author of Boswellian favorite Blacktop Wasteland, for a conversation about his sophomore novel Razorblade Tears, now a New York Times bestseller, with mystery critic and author Carole E Barrowman. Cosby's latest is the story of a Black father and a white father who join forces to get revenge on the men who murdered their gay sons.

We loved our event last summer with the dynamic Cosby, so it’s a thrill to have him return for this provocative, fast-paced novel. Here's more about it: Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband Derek. Isiah was a gay black man in the American South; Ike couldn’t bring himself to attend his son’s wedding. Derek’s father Buddy Lee is also suffering. He’d barely spoken to his son in five years; he was as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, alpha-males Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices, about each other and their sons, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.

SA Cosby is author of Blacktop Wasteland, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, as well as Brotherhood of the Blade and My Darkest Prayer. He won an Anthony Award for best short story as well. Carole E Barrowman is Director of Creative Studies in Writing at Alverno College and a regular contributor on books to WTMJ4’s The Morning Blend. She is coauthor of the Hollow Earth series and has written comics for DC and Titan.

Thursday, July 22, 2 pm
Mike Gayle, author of All The Lonely People
in Conversation with Daniel Goldin and Lisa Baudoin for A Virtual Event
Register for this event here
We're hoping to have signed bookplates soon. It's a big pond!

Join us for a special Readings from Oconomowaukee afternoon featuring Mike Gayle, author of a delightful novel about Jamaican immigrant Hubert, who rediscovers the world he'd turned his back on in this warm, funny book. Cohosted by Books & Company of Oconomowoc, this is our monthly series readers have been loving in which we host authors for a conversation with bookstore proprietors Daniel Goldin and Lisa Baudoin. Gayle joins us all the way from Birmingham, UK.

Publishers Weekly
called All the Lonely People "a winning tale."

This is the book fans of A Man Called Ove have been waiting for. With the origin of Hubert’s isolation always lurking in the shadows, will he ever get to live the life he's pretended to have for so long? All the Lonely People is by turns a funny and moving meditation on love, race, old age, and friendship that will not only charm and uplift, but also remind you of the power of ordinary people to make an extraordinary difference.

Books & Company had a delightful conversation about the joys of All the Lonely People on their Facebook page. You can watch it here.  

Mike Gayle wrote an advice column for a teenage girls' magazine before becoming Features Editor for another teen magazine. That's the official bio - the magazines in question are Just Seventeen and Bliss. And advice columnist translates to Agony Aunt in British English. For more about that, please consider registering for our AJ Pearce event on August 18 for Yours Cheerfully, the follow-up to Dear Mrs Bird.

Mike Gayle has written for a variety of publications including the Sunday Times, the Guardian, and Cosmo. He has written thirteen novels, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. Several of them are available stateside!

Monday, July 26, 7:30 pm
Kristin Harmel, author of The Forest of Vanishing Stars
A Virtual Event
Tickets for this event here - $5 or upgrade to a book with ticket.
Ask for your signed bookplate

The Lynden Sculpture Garden's Women's Speaker Series, sponsored by Milwaukee Reads and Boswell Book Company, hosts Kristin Harmel, author of novels like The Book of Lost Names, for a virtual, BYOS (bring-your-own-snacks) event. She’ll chat about her latest, an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis.

Inspired by incredible true stories of survival against staggering odds, and suffused with journey-from-the-wilderness, The Forest of Vanishing Stars is a heart-wrenching, suspenseful novel. From Heather Webb, author of The Next Ship Home, “With breathtaking natural descriptions, vivid historical details, and a brave heroine worth cheering for who must fulfill a destiny prophesied since birth, this novel is not to be missed!”

After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest, and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything.

Kristin Harmel is New York Times bestselling author of a dozen novels including The Book of Lost Names, The Winemaker’s Wife, and The Room on Rue Amélie. She is also the cofounder and cohost of the popular web series, Friends and Fiction.

A lucky attendee will win a stylish rope-handled tote with matching drink holders.  

This event is cohosted by the Lynden Sculpture Garden. The $5 ticket fee, or $3 if you purchase the book upgrade, is donated back to the Lynden Sculpture Garden.

More on the Boswell upcoming event page.

Photo credits:
--Elinor Lipman by Michael Benabib

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