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A CELEBRATION OF AUTHORS: CHRIS BOHJALIAN, LEAH HAGER COHEN, ELINOR LIPMAN TO SPEAK AT ANNUAL EVENT AT WORCESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE (Massachusetts)
October 9, 2012 Tuesday
by Nancy Sheehan, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
Author Chris Bohjalian will return to Worcester for a speaking
engagement Oct. 11. This time, there will be enough chairs.
Bohjalian, author of 15 books including "Midwives," an Oprah's Book
Club pick, and "The Sandcastle Girls," his latest novel set during
the Armenian Genocide of 1915, will participate in this year's
A Celebration of Authors event at Worcester Public Library. Also
appearing will be Leah Hager Cohen, author of several works including
her novel "The Grief of Others" and a member of the faculty at the
College of the Holy Cross; and Elinor Lipman, author of short stories,
essays, poetry, fiction and her most recent book, a humorous take
on our techno-obsessed culture, "Tweet Land of Liberty." The event
is a fundraiser for the Worcester Public Library Foundation, whose
programs and services benefit the library.
Recently, we spoke with Bohjalian, who grew up in Westchester County,
New York, and now lives in Vermont. He told us about his first speaking
engagement in Worcester, which was at the Tatnuck Bookseller & Sons
back in the 1990s and hosted by the store's former owners, Larry and
Gloria Abramoff.
Because Bohjalian had yet to establish his reputation as a writer,
a crowd was not expected - but that didn't take into account the
fact that Worcester is a city with a considerable and close-knit
Armenian community.
"They had put out only about 15 chairs because they thought that was
all that would show up for this guy from Vermont that no one had heard
of," Bohjalian said. "Well, because my name is Armenian there must have
been 70 people there, maybe more, and Larry was bring out more and more
and more chairs," as the Armenian community came out to support a total
stranger whose last name ends in i-a-n. "It was glorious," he said.
Bohjalian's breakthrough, "Midwives," would shortly follow and he was
a literary stranger no more after the phone rang one day and it was
Oprah telling him how much she liked his book. The result was instant,
high-profile bestseller status. He has received many awards since,
including the New England Society Book Award for "The Night Strangers."
His latest novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," finds the Armenian theme
resurgent after many years, since even before the Tatnuck Bookseller
metaphorical group hug. Published in July 2012, it is not his first
novel concerning his personal heritage, but it likely is the only one
you will ever read. It was 1993 when he made his first exploration of
the Armenian Genocide, the systematic extermination of the Armenian
minority within the Ottoman Empire, in what is now Turkey from 1915 to
1923. Bohjalian said that, even as he wrote, he knew it was a deeply
troubled manuscript. "That novel was a train wreck," he said. It
was never published and the manuscript now is in the archives of his
alma mater, Amherst College. "If you are a scholar or a masochist,
you can go read it," he said.
We asked why, almost 20 years later, he was prompted to revisit
the theme.
"First of all because the story is so important," he said. "There
is a direct link between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust,
the Cambodian Killing Fields, Serbia, Rwanda, Darfur. Secondly,
the story is, as my narrator puts it `the slaughter you know next to
nothing about.' America does not know this story because Turkey and
its allies continue to deny it. It's not taught in schools."
Thirdly, he began spending a lot of time with his father, whose health
had been deteriorating, looking through old family photographs, when a
good friend, Khatchig Mouradian, editor of Armenian Weekly, encouraged
him to try an exploration of his ethnic roots again. So he did, and
says he learned an immense amount in the process that enlivened the
few facts he had going into it. Though both his grandparents on his
father's side were genocide survivors, he knew very little about what
they experienced in 1915.
"Like the grandchild of survivors, if somebody's half Armenian,
you certainly know so many of the basics of the Armenian genocide,"
he said. "What I was doing with this novel was creating characters
that I cared about and that I hoped my readers would care about and
would bring the story to life."
A Celebration of Authors
When: 7 p.m. Oct. 11
Where: Worcester Public Library, 3 Salem Square, Worcester
How much: $35 per person. For tickets and info call (508) 799-1656
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE (Massachusetts)
October 9, 2012 Tuesday
by Nancy Sheehan, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
Author Chris Bohjalian will return to Worcester for a speaking
engagement Oct. 11. This time, there will be enough chairs.
Bohjalian, author of 15 books including "Midwives," an Oprah's Book
Club pick, and "The Sandcastle Girls," his latest novel set during
the Armenian Genocide of 1915, will participate in this year's
A Celebration of Authors event at Worcester Public Library. Also
appearing will be Leah Hager Cohen, author of several works including
her novel "The Grief of Others" and a member of the faculty at the
College of the Holy Cross; and Elinor Lipman, author of short stories,
essays, poetry, fiction and her most recent book, a humorous take
on our techno-obsessed culture, "Tweet Land of Liberty." The event
is a fundraiser for the Worcester Public Library Foundation, whose
programs and services benefit the library.
Recently, we spoke with Bohjalian, who grew up in Westchester County,
New York, and now lives in Vermont. He told us about his first speaking
engagement in Worcester, which was at the Tatnuck Bookseller & Sons
back in the 1990s and hosted by the store's former owners, Larry and
Gloria Abramoff.
Because Bohjalian had yet to establish his reputation as a writer,
a crowd was not expected - but that didn't take into account the
fact that Worcester is a city with a considerable and close-knit
Armenian community.
"They had put out only about 15 chairs because they thought that was
all that would show up for this guy from Vermont that no one had heard
of," Bohjalian said. "Well, because my name is Armenian there must have
been 70 people there, maybe more, and Larry was bring out more and more
and more chairs," as the Armenian community came out to support a total
stranger whose last name ends in i-a-n. "It was glorious," he said.
Bohjalian's breakthrough, "Midwives," would shortly follow and he was
a literary stranger no more after the phone rang one day and it was
Oprah telling him how much she liked his book. The result was instant,
high-profile bestseller status. He has received many awards since,
including the New England Society Book Award for "The Night Strangers."
His latest novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," finds the Armenian theme
resurgent after many years, since even before the Tatnuck Bookseller
metaphorical group hug. Published in July 2012, it is not his first
novel concerning his personal heritage, but it likely is the only one
you will ever read. It was 1993 when he made his first exploration of
the Armenian Genocide, the systematic extermination of the Armenian
minority within the Ottoman Empire, in what is now Turkey from 1915 to
1923. Bohjalian said that, even as he wrote, he knew it was a deeply
troubled manuscript. "That novel was a train wreck," he said. It
was never published and the manuscript now is in the archives of his
alma mater, Amherst College. "If you are a scholar or a masochist,
you can go read it," he said.
We asked why, almost 20 years later, he was prompted to revisit
the theme.
"First of all because the story is so important," he said. "There
is a direct link between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust,
the Cambodian Killing Fields, Serbia, Rwanda, Darfur. Secondly,
the story is, as my narrator puts it `the slaughter you know next to
nothing about.' America does not know this story because Turkey and
its allies continue to deny it. It's not taught in schools."
Thirdly, he began spending a lot of time with his father, whose health
had been deteriorating, looking through old family photographs, when a
good friend, Khatchig Mouradian, editor of Armenian Weekly, encouraged
him to try an exploration of his ethnic roots again. So he did, and
says he learned an immense amount in the process that enlivened the
few facts he had going into it. Though both his grandparents on his
father's side were genocide survivors, he knew very little about what
they experienced in 1915.
"Like the grandchild of survivors, if somebody's half Armenian,
you certainly know so many of the basics of the Armenian genocide,"
he said. "What I was doing with this novel was creating characters
that I cared about and that I hoped my readers would care about and
would bring the story to life."
A Celebration of Authors
When: 7 p.m. Oct. 11
Where: Worcester Public Library, 3 Salem Square, Worcester
How much: $35 per person. For tickets and info call (508) 799-1656