James J. Patterson Reads from MELANIE’S SONG on Latest LFTRR
The new mystery novel by ASP's Joanna Biggar is given the Patterson treatment in Episode 11 of Live from the Reading Room
“Melanie’s Song is an unputdownable, riveting feat of storytelling.”
Set in the era of Woodstock and Watergate, Melanie’s Song centers on a young woman’s mysterious disappearance, and on her friend’s determined search for her.
Melanie, who fled her marriage to a straight-laced classical musician in order to hitch-hike to Woodstock and San Francisco, was last seen at a commune in the California hills. Rumors abound: that she took up with a Black radical; that she had his child; that she and her lover, armed, ran a bank heist a la Patty Hearst; that she developed a mystical gift for spiritual healing; that she died in a possible accidental, possibly staged commune fire.
Trying to sift truth from invention pulls her friend, the young reporter, J.J., into the underbelly of the sexual and social revolutions of the 60s and early 70s, where she encounters corrupt cops, paranoid hippies, activists, mystics, drug-runners,and most astonishingly, Melanie’s own parents. Risking her job, her connections, her life, J.J. follows Melanie’s trail, determined to find out what happened to her once-compliant friend now turned, it seems, into a rebel angel.
Joanna Revisits Greece in her New Blog Entry
Joanna Biggar discusses the experience of revisiting a place in her newest blog entry, and debuts a poem in the shadow of the women’s march.
Linda Watanabe McFerrin Talks Travel and Literature on KCBX
In this interview for NPR affiliate KCBX, Linda Watanabe McFerrin discusses travel, literature, and her new book “Navigating the Divide.”
Reuben Jackson Talks “Old DC” on the DC Library Podcast
ON TUESDAY the writer of 2019’s Scattered Clouds and archivist at UDC’s Felix E. Grant Jazz archives, Reuben Jackson, stopped in for a chat with the DC Public Library’s radio podcast.