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.
What Does Anne Lamott Think of “Navigating the Divide”?
What does bestselling author Anne Lamott think of Linda Watanabe McFerrin’s “Navigating the Divide”?
Elizabeth Hazen’s New Poem, “Monarch”, Published by Shenandoah Magazine
A new Elizabeth Hazen poem, “Monarch”, has been published by the prestigious Shenandoah Magazine.
Independent Bookstore Day: What do the Indies Offer?
“Amid Amazon’s economic hegemony, amid the wholesale abandonment of big-box stores around the country, amid the strange, unpredicted resurgence of vinyl record collecting, and amid the general economic turmoil in the American printed news media we have, sitting in the room-corner upon a large leather chair, drinking tea, nose nestled cozily in the pages of Du Bois, the indie bookstore question. For what purpose does an indie bookstore exist in the age of digital media and online book sales?”