DOLEN PERKINS-VALDEZ: HAPPY LAND
Schedule
Fri, 11 Apr, 2025 at 06:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
387 Perkins Ext, Memphis, TN, United States, Tennessee 38117 | Memphis, TN
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Join us as we welcome DOLEN PERKINS-VALDEZ on FRIDAY, APRIL 11 at 6:00 PM to celebrate the release of her new novel HAPPY LAND!ABOUT THE BOOK:
A woman learns the astonishing truth of her family's ties to a real-life American kingdom in this transporting and riveting new novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Award-winning author of Take My Hand. In the hills of Appalachia, there once existed a land ruled by a king and a queen. Inspired by distant memories of African kingdoms, a community of formerly enslaved men and women grasped freedom and started lives on mountain land that they owned. They worked hard, lived well, and loved there. For a time the kingdom thrived...and then it disappeared. Present Day. Nikki hasn't seen her grandmother in years, due to a mysterious estrangement inherited from her mother. So when the elder calls out of the blue with an urgent request for Nikki to visit her in the hills of western North Carolina, Nikki hesitates only for a moment. After years of silence in her family, she's determined to get answers while she still can. But instead of answers about the recent past, Mother Rita tells Nikki a shocking story about her great-great-great-grandmother Queen Luella and the very land they are standing on. Land that Mother Rita says must be protected. The more Nikki learns about the Kingdom of the Happy Land and the lives of those who dwelled in the ruins she finds in the woods-who are buried beneath stone grave markers-the more she understands that sometimes, atonement for the previous generations' mistakes falls squarely on the shoulders of the descendants. And it's up to her to make things right.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench (2010), Balm (2015), and most recently Take My Hand (2022) which was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, Essence, NBC News, and elsewhere. Amazon named Take My Hand one of the Top 20 Books of 2022. The novel was awarded a 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and Fiction Award from Black Caucus of the American Library Association. It has been longlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship, Dolen is widely considered a pre-eminent chronicler of American historical life. Her forthcoming novel Happy Land will be published in April 2025. She is Associate Professor in the MFA Program at American University in Washington, DC.
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Where is it happening?
387 Perkins Ext, Memphis, TN, United States, Tennessee 38117Event Location & Nearby Stays:
