Jasper Fforde
Three separate interviews in which Jasper Fforde discusses the Thursday Next series, his Nursery Crime novels and Shades of Grey, the first in a trilogy set in a future world recognizable as our own - but only just.
Abraham Verghese
An interview with Abraham Verghese about his life and writing and in particular about his extraordinary 2009 novel Cutting for Stone, set in 1960s and '70s Ethiopia and 1980s New York.
Martha A Sandweiss
An interview with Martha Sandweiss in which she discusses her book Passing Strange, a biography of Clarence King who lived a double lifeas the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a black Pullman porter named James Todd, married to Ada with whom he had five children.
Amy Greene
Amy Greene talks about her first novel, Bloodroot, which brings her native Appalachiaand the faith and fury of its peopleto rich and vivid life.
It was just after dusk when the accident happened. As
usual, Jack Perdu was walking through theYale University
campus with his nose buried in Ovids Metamorphoses.
Although he was only in the ninth grade, he had an afterschool
job helping the head of the universitys Classics
department on her new English translation. It was the day
after Christmas so there were no professors around, which
meant that there was no reason for Jack to look up out of
his book. But suddenly he heard a shout.
Hey, Jack!
Jack stopped walking and looked up. A girl in a
puffy blue parka was running toward him across the
brick walkway between the Yale library and Elm Street.
Her hair was in braids, and she was frantically waving
at him.
Its Tanya, she panted when she reached him.Im in
your English class.
Oh, said Jack. He knew who she was, but, like most
of the kids at Hyde Leadership High School, shed never
spoken to him before.
I was just going to the store to return this pair of
pants my mother got me for Christmas, she explained,
pulling a pair of brown corduroys out of a plastic bag.
Theyre pretty awful, arent they?
Jack, who was wearing a pair of pants very much like
them, didnt say anything. Tanya didnt seem to notice.
Anyway, I cant remember what book were supposed to
read over break.When I saw you, I knew youd know.
Of Mice and Men, said Jack.
Tanya grinned. I bet youve read it already.
Jack gave a noncommittal shrug. Hed actually read it
a few years earlier.
You live here, right? Tanya pointed vaguely at the
stone residential colleges, which surrounded the walkway
on either side.
Jack nodded.
And let me guess, your dads a professor?
Hes the chair of the Archeology department.
Tanya smiled. Thats why youre so smart.You know
every poem in class before we even read it.
Not really, he murmured, though he usually did.
Is your mom a professor too?
Jack shivered and pulled his cap tighter over his unruly
thatch of hair.No, he said.Shes dead.
Oh my God, Im so sorry! said Tanya.
Its okay. It happened a long time ago. I was six.
Tanyas eyes widened.What happened?
Jack looked around her for an escape route.A scaffold
fell on her in New York City, he murmured. It was a
windy day.
Thats horrible!
It happened a long time ago, he repeated. Eight years
ago this month, he thought, but didnt say it. He looked
down at the book in his hands.
What are you reading? It doesnt look like the Mice
and Men book.
Jack held up the book so she could see the spine.
Metamorphoses. Tanya wrinkled her nose. Is that a
book about insects or something?
Its a book of Greek myths.
Tanya shook her head.Youre too smart to be in high
school, Jack. You should be a professor or something
yourself.
Ive got to go, he said. And before she had a chance
to say anything else, he flipped open the Metamorphoses
and started walking toward Elm Street. Hed heard it all
before.
As he hurried away, Jack focused on how to properly
translate the Latin word occidit. He had just started Book
Ten of the Metamorphoses, which contained his favorite
myth, the story of the musician Orpheus. After a snakebite
kills his bride, Eurydice, Orpheus descends into the
underworld to bring her back. Jack had gotten as far as
the snake attack, after which Eurydice occidit. Occidit could
mean that the snake killed her or cut her down, but it
could also mean that she perished. Some people might
not think theres much of a difference between these possibilities,
but Jack did. You could perish in an accident
and no one is to blame. But when youre killed, a killer
in Eurydices case, the snakeis at fault.
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legaciesof magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and lossthat haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.
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