August 21, 2006
Novelist Annette Gilson: Thursday @ Left Bank
Former Washington University MFA student Annette Gilson's back in town to promote her novel "New Light." She was a guest on The Wire tonight on KDHX, and you can hopefully stream that interview anytime after midnight this evening. She'll be reading from the book, set in St. Louis and rural Missouri, this Thursday night at 7 p.m., at Left Bank Books.
Here's a short synopsis from the Black Heron Press website:
Beth Martin feels she's wasted her life. She goes to St. Louis to visit her college roommate and get her bearings. But at a party she has what she can only call a vision, disconcerting but compelling. She meets a man who introduces her to a visionary community called New Light. She is befriended by some of its members, and also meets its charismatic leader, known as The Mother. Beth is intrigued by the community's openness to sexual and emotional experimentation, but is also disturbed by The Mother's enormous power over its members. In the end she must address questions of faith and loyalty, tolerance, jealousy and desire.