Book Launch: Donna Dechen Birdwell - The Disenchantment of Narcissa Tarver

Name: Book Launch: Donna Dechen Birdwell - The Disenchantment of Narcissa Tarver
Start: 2025-10-09T17:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-10-09T19:00:00-05:00
Location: 5330 Menchaca Rd, Austin, TX, United States, Texas 78745

Schedule

Thu Oct 09 2025 at 05:00 pm to 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

5330 Menchaca Rd, Austin, TX, United States, Texas 78745 | Austin, TX

Join us on Thursday, October 9th at 5:00pm as we welcome local author Donna Birdwell to Reverie Books for her upcoming novel of historical fiction The Disenchantment of Narcissa Tarver.
This event is free and open to the public, and all ages are welcome!
ABOUT THE BOOK: Narcissa Tarver wants to be someone who matters, someone like her celebrated older brother Duncan. Caught between generations in her sprawling rural family as it struggles to preserve privilege in post-Reconstruction Mississippi, Narcissa is relegated to the care of an adolescent Black girl and regaled with stories of haints and witches. As she realizes the power of written words, her ambition to be a newspaper reporter intersects in disturbing ways with Duncan’s shady politics. Narcissa will have to choose between devotion to family and fidelity to the truths she uncovers. Hers is a story of disappointments, conflicted loyalties, and a search for identity in a changing world where questioning white supremacy and male dominance can get a girl in a mess of trouble.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Donna Birdwell is an anthropologist who turned her skill toward fiction writing a decade ago; she is now the author of nine books. The Disenchantment of Narcissa Tarver is her first work of historical fiction and her most personal novel, incorporating as it does some of the history of her own family. Most of Birdwell’s previous work is speculative fiction, including the award-winning Song of All Songs, published in 2020. She is a third generation Texan and has made Austin her home since 2009.