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The Loft Literary Center and Milkweed Editions are proud to cosponsor a publication reading by veteran author Jim Heynen and debut novelist Molly Beth Griffin.
In Jim Heynen's latest novel, The Fall of Alice K., 17-year-old Alice Marie Krayenbraak appears to have it all. But in her hometown of Dutch Center, Iowa, nothing is as it seems. Behind the facade of order and tidiness, the family farm is failing. Alice's mother is behaving strangely amid fears of a coming apocalypse. And her parents have announced their plans to send her special-needs sister, Aldah, away. Funny and provocative, amusing and unsettling, The Fall of Alice K. marks a watershed moment in the publishing career of Jim Heynen.
Molly Beth Griffin's debut novel for young adults, Silhouette of a Sparrow, wonderfully evokes the historical period of the 1920s, a love of birding and a girl's coming-of-age and sexual awareness. Sixteen-year-old Garnet Richardson's life changes when she is allowed to spend the summer with the Harringtons, well-to-do relatives in the Minnesota vacation spot of Excelsior. It's 1926 and a new amusement park has recently been built and a large dance hall beckons. There, Garnet discovers a love unlike anything she's experienced before with another young woman, Isabella, whom her guardians call "a harlot." Garnet must decide the course her life will take, despite her parents' wishes and the prevailing norms.
Jim Heynen was born in a farmhouse near Sioux City, Iowa, and attended a one-room schoolhouse. He has written nearly twent books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He lives in St. Paul with his wife Sarah T. Williams, the former books editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Molly Beth Griffin is a graduate of Hamline University's MFA program in writing for Children and Young Adults. She is the author of the picture book Loon Baby. She lives in south Minneapolis with her partner and their toddler.
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