Susan McCarty - 2008

Susan McCarty will read from her new novel, 2008. The University of Chicago Press offers this summary of 2008:
"It’s 2008: the age of the blog, the dawn of social media, and the birth of the smartphone. Obama is running for president on a slogan of hope, while in the shadows, an opioid crisis emerges, and the housing market teeters. Stevie and Sam, two old high school flames who have grown up and grown apart, are brought back together in the aftermath of a tragedy that throws them off the tracks of their lives. Sam, a struggling realtor, is determined to solve a mystery at any cost. Stevie hits on a plan for a “redo” that involves abandoning her adult life to relive her teenage glory days. As both struggle inside the mediocrity of their early adulthoods, the disenchanted world begins to reveal itself, and secrets threaten to overwhelm them. On the cusp of a new era of uncertainty, these old friends must find ways to reconcile their past and find their way home" (press.uchicago.edu).
Foreward Reviews praises 2008 as "a layered novel in which teenage friendship leads to chain reactions that continue years into the future," while Aaron Burch, author of Year of the Buffalo, says: "2008 pulled me in from its very first pages and then never let me go."
Susan McCarty is the author of the story collection Anatomies. Her essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Ecotone, Lit Hub, Juked, Zone 3, and other journals. She is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Oakland University in the metro Detroit area.