New Dominion Bookshop will host a book reading and signing with author Kathleen Grissom on Friday, June 9, at 7 p.m.
Grissom, the author of the New York Times bestselling novels The Kitchen House and Glory Over Everything, will be reading from her new historical fiction novel, Crow Mary, which will be released from Atria/Simon & Schuster in early June.
Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Grissom spent a decade researching and writing Crow Mary.
The book is a sweeping saga inspired by the true story of Crow Mary, an indigenous woman torn between two worlds in 19th century North America. Grissom received the blessing of Crow Mary’s family and the Crow elders, following extensive research for the book.
In 1872, 16-year-old Goes First, a Crow Native woman, marries Abe Farwell, a white fur trader. He gives her the name Mary, and they set off on the long trip to his trading post in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan, Canada. Along the way, she finds a fast friend in a Métis named Jeannie; makes a lifelong enemy in a wolfer named Stiller; and despite learning a dark secret of Farwell’s past, falls in love with her husband. The winter trading season passes peacefully. Then, on the eve of their return to Montana, a group of drunken whiskey traders slaughters 40 Nakota despite Farwell’s efforts to stop them. Mary, hiding from the hail of bullets, sees the murderers, including Stiller, take five Nakota women back to their fort. She begs Farwell to save them, and when he refuses, Mary takes two guns, creeps into the fort and saves the women from certain death. Thus, she sets off a whirlwind of colliding cultures that brings out the worst and best in the cast of unforgettable characters and pushes the love between Farwell and Crow Mary to the breaking point.
Crow Mary sweeps across decades and the landscape of the upper West and Canada, showcasing the beauty of the natural world, while at the same time probing the intimacies of a marriage and one woman’s heart.
Grissom lives in Charlottesville.
This in-person event will be free to attend and open to the public.
New Dominion Bookshop is located at 404 E Main St. on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville.
For more information, visit ndbookshop.com.
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Crystal Graham
