Harvard Book Store and GrubStreet welcome co-founding editor of the literary journal Gigantic Annie Dewitt for a reading from her debut YA novel, WHITE NIGHTS IN SPLIT TOWN CITY.
White Nights details the summer of 1990 on the last unpaved road in a rural American town. Thirteen year old Jean’s family life is slowing disintegrating. Her mother leaves, and in her absence, Jean is torn between the adult world and surreal fantasies of escape. She builds a fort with an abandoned boy, Fender Steelhead, to survey the rumors of their town. But as the kids begin to uncover their neighbors’ secrets and desires, Jean discovers her own propensity for transgression.
Both coming of age story and cautionary tale, this lyrical debut delves into the beauties and dangers of what it means to bear witness, the psychology of isolation, and our universal need to belong.
This reading will be followed by a book signing.
Certain books were “banned in Boston” at least as far back as 1651, when one William Pynchon wrote a book criticizing Puritanism.