When COVID hit, I made a vow to read any book strongly recommended to me. That s how I found myself simultaneously devouring Christie Tate s well-written memoir
GROUP: HOW ONE THERAPIST AND A CIRCLE OF STRANGERS SAVED MY LIFE (Avid Reader Press) and my favorite 2020 work of fiction, Charles Baxter s
THE SUN COLLECTIVE (Pantheon). Overachieving neurotic Tate s revelations aren t earth-shattering but give an honest, entertaining look at healing through opening up to strangers turned allies. Baxter s novel is our story: a society untethered from its moral ground, swaying in the greed and anxiety of a Trump-ish leader named Amos Alonzo Thorkelson as rumors of the mythical Sandmen killing the poor and the Sun Collective perhaps taking out the rich pollute everything. Meanwhile, Baxter s patented polite Midwesterners do their buttoned-down best to get by. Baxter remains one our very finest writers, and you should seek out his work now.
In this special live episode of
Fiction/Non/Fiction, presented by Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis, acclaimed novelist and teacher Charles Baxter and his former student, short story writer Mike Alberti, join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss their new books. Upon the release of his seventeenth book, the much-anticipated
The Sun Collective, Baxter reflects on how time and place factor into his work and talks about writing about politics in his hometown. Then Alberti discusses his searing debut short story collection,
Some People Let You Down, and how he finds inspiration and hope in teaching incarcerated writers through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. The two also provide a rare window into their ongoing conversations about teaching and the craft of fiction, and answer questions from audience members and readers, including incarcerated writers.