Book Event: The Spirits by Bonnie Jo Campbell

We are excited to welcome back Bonnie Jo Campbell for an event celebrating the release of her newest novel, The Spirits! For this event she will be joined in conversation by W&CF co-founded Linda Bubon.

The best-selling author of The Waters returns with a tale of love, transgression, and the miraculous healing power of the holiday table.

Bonnie Jo Campbell, a master of rural American fiction, brings us a hair-raising winter tale to warm us by the fireside. In this contemporary Christmas Carol, Campbell has created a gritty, spooky, and ultimately heartening holiday story that unfolds in an isolated farmhouse. It is the night before Christmas in a small town in Michigan, and a young woman is haunted by her father’s death. She has been silently penitent for nine years, but her guilt and grief have estranged her from her community and her family. She has taken refuge in the natural world of the plants and trees she tends, but on this anniversary of the tragedy, the supernatural landscape is rattling its chains.

When a surprise guest appears at the (dreaded) Christmas Eve dinner, the family begins to open up and reveal dangerous secrets and crimes nobody is willing to face. Within this darkest chaos, a sliver of light appears, showing a way to reclaim communion and even a sense of humor. While redemption is never easy or wholesale, the story that a family creates together can heal wounds.

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of The Waters, a Today Show “Read with Jenna” Book Club selection. Her other novels include Once Upon A River, a National Bestseller that was adapted into the award-winning film, and Q Road. Campbell’s short story collections include American Salvage, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and Women and Other Animals, an AWP Grace Paley Prize winner. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of the Eudora Welty Prize and Mark Twain Award. She lives outside Kalamazoo on a small farm with her husband and donkeys. Visit www.bonniejocampbell.net

Linda Bubon is one of the founders of Chicago's Women & Children First bookstore.

Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are strongly encouraged for this event but not required. We have one industrial air purifier, two smaller air purifiers, and four ceiling fans throughout our space. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com by no later than 14 days before the event. For other access needs please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com.