Exile in Bookville Authors on Tap: Peter Geye and Rachel Swearingen
Monday Sep 19 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm
From Exile in Bookville:
Please join us IN PERSON on Monday, September 19th at 7:00pm central to help celebrate Peter Geye's new novel, The Ski Jumpers. Peter will be in conversation with Rachel Swearingen!
About the book:
A brilliant ski jumper has to be fearless--Jon Bargaard remembers this well. His memories of daring leaps and risks might be the key to the book he's always wanted to write: a novel about his family, beginning with Pops, once a champion ski jumper himself, who also took Jon and his younger brother Anton to the heights. But Jon has never been able to get past the next, ruinous episode of their history, and now that he has received a terrible diagnosis, he's afraid he never will.
In a bravura performance, Peter Geye follows Jon deep into the past he tried so hard to leave behind, telling the story he spent his life escaping. It begins with a flourish, his father and his hard-won sweetheart fleeing Chicago, and a notoriously ruthless gangster, to land in North Minneapolis. That, at least, was the tale Jon heard, one that becomes more and more suspect as he revisits the events that eventually tore the family in two, sending his father to prison, his mother to the state hospital, and placing himself, a teenager, in charge of thirteen-year-old Anton. Traveling back and forth in time, Jon tells his family's story--perhaps his last chance to share it--to his beloved wife Ingrid, circling ever closer to the truth about those events and his own part in them, and revealing the perhaps unforgivable violence done to the brothers' bond.
The dream of ski jumping haunts Jon as his tale unfolds, daring time to stop just long enough to stick the landing. As thrilling as those soaring flights, as precarious as the Bargaard family's complicated love, as tender as Jon's backward gaze while disease takes him inexorably forward, Peter Geye's gorgeous prose brings the brothers to the precipice of their relationship, where they have to choose: each other, or the secrets they've held so tightly for so long.
Peter Geye is author of the award-winning novels Safe from the Sea, The Lighthouse Road, Wintering (winner of the Minnesota Book Award), and Northernmost. He teaches the yearlong Novel Writing Project at the Loft Literary Center. Born and raised in Minneapolis, he continues to live there with his family.
Rachel Swearingen is the author of the story collection How to Walk on Water and Other Stories, which received the New American Press Fiction Prize and was named the 2021 Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year. Her stories and essays have appeared in Electric Lit, VICE, The Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, Off Assignment, Agni, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere.
About the event:
This event will take place in our beautiful outdoor courtyard located on the forth floor of our building!
You can purchase their books through the respective links and Peter and Rachel are happy to sign or personalize copies! If you can't make it to the event, signed copies will be available and we ship nationally!
Please note the following COVID protocols for those attending IN PERSON:
Attendees must present a physical copy or a photo of their COVID-19 vaccine card along with a valid photo ID (state, government, or school ID); or
Provide a time-stamped printout, photo, or email of a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours of the event or a negative Rapid Antigen Test taken within 36 hours of the event, along with a valid photo ID (state, government, or school ID).
All persons must wear a mask for the duration of their time in the Fine Arts Building, regardless of vaccination status in accordance with our current COVID policies
Please email us at books@exileinbookville.com or phone us at (312)-753-3154 if you have any questions or concerns.
Click here to register for free!