Simone in Pieces: An evening with Janet Burroway and Miles Harvey

February 7 | In-Store | 4:00 PM

Join award winning author Janet Burroway in conversation with Miles Harvey about Janet’s new novel, Simone in Pieces. Janet is also the author of, (a bestseller through 10 editions) and has written eight previous novels, as well as a memoir, plays, short fiction, children’s books, and more. Recipient of the Florida Humanities Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing, she is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emerita at Florida State University at Tallahassee. The conversation will be followed by a book signing.

Doors and minibar open at 3:30PM

About the author: Janet Burroway, also the author of , (a bestseller through 10 editions; more than 250,000 copies sold; it's the textbook for nearly every creative writing course) has written eight previous novels, as well as a memoir, plays, short fiction, children’s books, and more. Recipient of the Florida Humanities Council’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing, she is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emerita at Florida State University at Tallahassee. She lives in Chicago.

About the Book: Readers first meet Simone Lerrante, a Belgian war orphan, as a child refugee in Sussex, England, her memory damaged by trauma. This novel offers a kaleidoscopic vision of her fractured life and piecemeal understanding of self across multiple points of view. Following her from Cambridge to New York City and across the United States—through a disastrous marriage, thwarted desire, and the purgatory of academic backwaters—the novel charts Simone’s unexpected reconnection with her past, which provides both autonomy and inspiration for her future. Janet Burroway slowly reveals a multifaceted, fascinating protagonist, who observes her own life without always allowing herself to be immersed in it. Spanning seven decades, this story is both epic and contained, rewarding readers at every turn.

Praise for Simone in Pieces

“[This] novel might also be thought of as a guide to writing fiction, putting on display a wide array of techniques for portraying a character and unfolding a story. As Simone creates collages from fragments of photographs, this novel delivers similar aesthetic surprise and satisfaction.”— Kirkus Reviews

“A well-crafted tale of a war orphan’s decades-spanning journey of self-discovery. . . . Burroway alternates Simone’s narration with evocative snippets from other characters’ points of view.”— Publishers Weekly

“A compelling story of love, loss, and the coincidences that make a life. . . . Readers will find themselves contemplating the trajectory of their own lives while following Simone on her long, winding road to a happy-ish ending.”— Library Journal

“In the absorbing novel Simone in Pieces, a young refugee’s mutable identity diverts and sustains the course of her life.”— Foreword Reviews

“In the tradition of Lily Tuck and Jayne Anne Phillips, Burroway’s Simone in Pieces interrogates trauma, memory, and identity mapped across a life’s movement toward wholeness. Gripping and painful fragments allow the reader to fill in the blanks that Simone cannot—the result is both compelling and rapturous, a novel that gives voice to a life spent fulfilling but never quite becoming. Austere and haunting, this addictively compulsive novel is a must-read portrait of our age.”—Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son

“I love this book. Each time the story baton is handed forward here, it’s with a precision and grace and élan that only Burroway has. Her instinct for what to do in the next line feels so natural, so right.”—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times best-selling author of The Buffalo Hunter

“A capacious novel. For more than sixty years, Simone navigates her career and relationships, working through traumas and fragmented memory, and strives for self-realization during a precarious time for a woman academic. Moving, courageous, and thought-provoking, Simone’s quest is both a love story and a triumph over her childhood tragedies.”—Yang Huang, author of My Good Son

Getting here: We are located at 1620 Orrington Avenue, in downtown Evanston, just one block east of the Davis Street Metra, CTA, and PACE public transit stops. There is metered street parking as well as numerous parking garages nearby.

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