New Novels
Featured writers: Jane Hamilton, Sahar Mustafah, and Arionne Nettles
New books from the authors of The Book of Ruth and The Beauty of Your Face take center stage in this exploration of the novelist’s craft. Jane Hamilton discusses her new coming-of-age novel The Phoebe Variations, while Sahar Mustafah shares insights into her new novel The Slightest Green. Moderated by journalist and author Arionne Nettles.
Book signing times. These writers will be signing in the outdoor space on State Street, by the main entrance to the library.
🖊️Jane Hamilton: 5:00 – 5:30
🖊️Sahar Mustafah: 5:00 – 5:30
About the writers:
JANE HAMILTON grew up in Oak Park and has written 8 critically acclaimed novels.
SAHAR MUSTAFAH is an award-winning Palestinian American author of The Slightest Green, The Beauty of Your Face, and Code of the West. Her recent fiction is featured in Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction; The View from Gaza published in The Massachusetts Review; and Redline: Chicago Horror Stories. Mustafah writes and teaches outside of Chicago.
ARIONNE NETTLES is a professor, culture reporter, and audio aficionado who serves as the Garth C. Reeves eminent scholar chair and instructor for digital journalism at Florida A&M University. As a journalist, her stories often examine Chicago history, culture, gun violence, policing, and race & class disparities. She’s held editorial roles at WBEZ, The Associated Press, and the Chicago Defender—one of the oldest Black newspapers in the U.S. She is the author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything and Journalism for Dummies.
The Phoebe Variations
by Jane Hamilton
A stunning coming-of-age novel about friendship, mothers, and finding one’s way in the world. Set in an Oak Park, IL-ish place in the 1970s. By the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World.
The Slightest Green
by Sahar Mustafah
In the middle of dinner one evening, Intisar Jaber receives a phone call that will upend her quiet life in Chicago: her father is dying and she must go to Palestine to pay her final respects. But Intisar hasn’t seen or heard from Hafez for nearly two decades, ever since he abandoned her and her mother to join the resistance. She will have to face her fierce grandmother Sundus whose battle to save her land is suddenly thrust upon Intisar. Will Intisar claim it, or turn her back as her father had done to her? Powerfully etched in Sahar Mustafah’s honest and lyrical prose, The Slightest Green explores the place—and people—we call home and how far we will go to reach them.
We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything
by Arionne Nettles
Pop culture expert Arionne Nettles takes us through the history of how Black Chicagoans have led pop culture in America for decades, and gives insight into the ways culture spreads and influences our lives.