Milkweed Books
1011 S Washington Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55415
United States
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ABOUT THE BOOK
In this contemporary Christmas Carol, Bonnie Jo Campbell has created a complex, gritty, spooky, and ultimately heartwarming holiday story that unfolds in an isolated farmhouse. It is the night before Christmas in a small town in Michigan, and a young woman is haunted by her father’s death. She has been silently penitent for nine years, but being stuck in the past has embittered her, made her cut herself off emotionally from her community and her family, despite her deep devotion to them. When a surprising guest appears at the (dreaded) Christmas Eve dinner, the family opens up to reveal their secrets. Redemption is never easy or wholesale, but sometimes a family needs a good story as much as they need to face the truth. In this remarkable exploration of crime and punishment, salvation arrives at the darkest hour. The power of familial love and a sense of humor promise a brighter and more joyful new beginning for the whole family.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of The Waters, a Today Show “Read with Jenna” Book Club selection. Her other novels include Once Upon A River, a National Bestseller that was adapted into the awardwinning film, and Q Road. Campbell’s short story collections include American Salvage, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and Women and Other Animals, an AWP Grace Paley Prize winner. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of the Eudora Welty Prize and Mark Twain Award. She lives outside Kalamazoo on a small farm with her husband and donkeys. Visit www.bonniejocampbell.net.
Lisa DuRose is an English faculty member at Inver Hills Community College where she teaches classes in composition and literature. She is the co-editor of Michigan Salvage: The Fiction of Bonnie Jo Campbell and has published essays in the Journal of College and Character, The Wallace Stevens Journal, and Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies. Her work on Bonnie Jo Campbell has also appeared in Midwestern Miscellany, Rain Taxi, and most recently in Lingering Inland: A Literary Tour of the Midwest.