SPL Seaside Series: weekly open-air events in Small Cove Park every Wednesday in July and August
From 12.00 pm until 1.00 pm
With Writers & Lovers and Euphoria, Lily King’s books catapulted onto bestseller and best-of-the-year lists across the country and established her as one of our most “brilliant” (New York Times Book Review), “wildly talented” (Chicago Tribune), and beloved authors in contemporary fiction. Now, Five Tuesdays in Winter, collects, for the first time ever, ten of King’s finest short stories–half published in leading literary magazines and half brand new–opening fresh realms of discovery for avid and new readers alike.
Told in the intimate voices of uniquely endearing characters of all ages, these tales explore desire and heartache, loss and discovery, moments of jolting violence and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs. A bookseller’s unspoken love for his employee rises to the surface, a neglected teenage boy finds much-needed nurturing from an unlikely pair of college students hired to housesit, a girl’s loss of innocence at the hands of her employer’s son becomes a catalyst for strength and confidence, and a proud nonagenarian rages helplessly in his granddaughter’s hospital room. A German mother and her teenage daughter vacation on the North Sea, attempting to escape the loss they have suffered, a middle-aged gay man reunites with his college roommate, the object of his unrequited desire all those years ago, and in one story, slipping slyly into the surreal, a mysterious man appears at the door, interrupting a young mother at work on her secret, unfinished novel. Romantic, hopeful, brutally raw, and unsparingly honest, these stories are, above all, about King’s enduring subject of love.
Lily King is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels: The Pleasing Hour, The English Teacher, Father of the Rain, Euphoria, and Writers & Lovers. Her work has won numerous awards, including the Kirkus Prize, the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Maine Book Award for Fiction, a Whiting Award, and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. She has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. She lives in Portland, Maine.
SPL's Seaside Series is free and open to all. We encourage participants to bring their own seating—a camp chair or even just a blanket—plus enough sunscreen and bug spray to keep them happy. In case of rain, the event will be moved indoors to SPL.