“The Road from Belhaven”: A Reading by Margot Livesey

Margot Livesey will read from her Massachusetts Book Award-honored novel The Road from Belhaven. She will share reflections on the book’s origins and craft, followed by a brief discussion and audience Q&A. A book signing will follow, and Amherst Books will be on site with copies available for purchase.
The Road from Belhaven is a richly imagined historical novel inspired by Livesey’s mother and her “gift of second sight.” Set in late nineteenth-century Scotland, the book illuminates the social constraints faced by women while paying homage to the classic novels that shaped Livesey’s literary imagination. Blending careful historical detail with a subtle strain of magical realism, the novel explores questions of fate, free will, and feminine agency, suggesting that even the most grounded realities are touched by mystery.
MARGOT LIVESEY grew up at a boys’ boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, where her father taught and her mother worked as the school nurse. She is the author of nine novels, including Eva Moves the Furniture, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, Mercury, and The Boy in the Field, as well as The Road from Belhaven, which received Fiction Honors in the Mass Book Awards. Her nonfiction book The Hidden Machinery, a collection of essays on writing, was published by Tin House Books. Livesey has taught at numerous institutions, including Boston University, Emerson College, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she currently teaches. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the N.E.A., and other organizations, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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