Literature/fiction
Days of Afrekete
by Asali Solomon
Discussion Date: October 27
"I didn't feel like I was reading this novel--I felt like I was living it." --Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House
From award-winning author Asali Solomon, The Days of Afrekete is a tender, surprising novel of two women at midlife who rediscover themselves--and perhaps each other, inspired by Mrs. Dalloway, Sula, and Audre Lorde's Zami Liselle Belmont is having a dinner party. It seems a strange occasion--her husband, Winn, has lost his bid for the state legislature--but what better way to thank key supporters than a feast? Liselle was never sure about her husband becoming a politician, never sure about the limelight, never sure about the life of fundraising and stump speeches. Then an FBI agent calls to warn her that Winn might be facing corruption charges. An avalanche of questions tumbles around her: Is it possible he's guilty? Who are they to each other; who have they become? How much of herself has she lost--and was it worth it? And just this minute, how will she make it through this dinner party? Across town, Selena Octave is making her way through the same day, the same way she always does--one foot in front of the other, keeping quiet and focused, trying not to see the terrors all around her. Homelessness, starving children, the very living horrors of history that made America possible: these and other thoughts have made it difficult for her to live an easy life. The only time she was ever really happy was with Liselle, back in college. But they've lost touch, so much so that when they ran into each other at a drugstore just after Obama was elected president, they barely spoke. But as the day wears on, memories of Liselle begin to shift Selena's path. Inspired by Mrs. Dalloway and Sula, as well as Audre Lorde's Zami, Asali Solomon's The Days of Afrekete is a deft, expertly layered, naturally funny, and deeply human examination of two women coming back to themselves at midlife. It is a watchful celebration of our choices and where they take us, the people who change us, and how we can reimagine ourselves even when our lives seem set.Ceremony
by Leslie Marmon Silko
Discussion Date: November 17
America Fantastica
An American Master returns: The author of The Things They Carried delivers his first new novel in two decades, a brilliant and rollicking odyssey, in which a bank robbery by a disgraced journalist sparks a cross-country chase through a nation corroded by shameless delusion and deceit.
At 11:34 a.m. one Saturday in August 2019, Boyd Halverson strode into Community National Bank in northern California.
"How much is on hand, would you say?" he asked the teller. "I'll want it all."
"You're robbing me?"
"Not you, " Boyd replied, revealing a Temptation .38 Special.
Angie Bing, the teller, scraped together $81,000.
Boyd stuffed the cash into a paper grocery bag. "I'm sorry about this," he said, "but I'll have to ask you to take a ride with me. ..."
So begins the adventure of Boyd Halverson--star journalist turned notorious online disinformation troll turned JC Penny manager--and his irrepressible hostage, Angie Bing. Haunted by his past and weary of his present, Boyd has one goal before the authorities catch up with him: settle a score with the man who destroyed his life. By Monday Boyd and Angie reach Mexico; by winter, they are in a lakefront mansion in Minnesota. On their trail are hitmen, jealous lovers, ex-cons, an heiress, a billionaire shipping tycoon, a three-tour veteran of Iraq, and the ghosts of Boyd's past. Everyone, it seems, except the police.
America Fantastica marks the triumphant return of an essential voice in American letters. Just as O'Brien's modern classic, The Things They Carried, so brilliantly reflected the unromantic truth of war, America Fantastica puts a mirror to a nation and a time that has become dangerously unmoored from truth and greedy for delusion.
Big Meal (acting edition)
Blue Hour
Bride of the Sea
And when Hanadi comes of age, she finds herself at the center of this conflict, torn between the world she grew up in and a family across the ocean. How can she exist between parents, between countries?
Eman Quotah's Bride of the Sea is a spellbinding debut of colliding cultures, immigration, religion, and family; an intimate portrait of loss and healing; and, ultimately, a testament to the ways we find ourselves inside love, distance, and heartbreak.
Brooklyn
BURIED CHILD (REV) (P)
"From the Trade Paperback edition."
Cambodian Rock Band
In 1978, Chum fled Cambodia and narrowly escaped the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. Thirty years later he returns in search of his wayward daughter, Neary. Jumping back and forth in time, thrilling mystery meets rock concert as both father and daughter are forced to face the music of the past.
From playwright Lauren Yee (King of the Yees, The Great Leap) comes a story filled with horror, humor, pathos, and songs by the best unknown rock band in Cambodia!