Growing up, Tony Keith Jr. felt the boogeyman was always chasing down his internal monologues—his Blackness, his desire for higher education, and his feelings for boys over girls. His YA memoir, How the Boogeyman Became a Poet, details his battle through poverty, racism, and homophobia to become an openly gay first-generation college student. Keith will read from his debut and discuss it with the audience.
Free, 7pm. New Dominion Bookshop, 401 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. ndbookshop.com
It was a prolific year for local authors. Popular favorites like Rita Mae Brown, John Grisham, and Ann Beattie added new titles to their extensive catalogs. Several UVA professors published in-depth explorations of their expertise—from tracing the history of Jefferson’s university, to defining the basis of a scientific claim, to analyzing politics’ impact on the cigarette. Poetry collections explored relationships and the natural world, memoirs shared stories of loss and change, and dramatic novels offered timely plots about privilege and saving ecosystems. Here are some of the books we enjoyed.—Cortney Phillips Meriwether
Laurance Wieder, Poetry History Music Art
Containing 23 essays from the last 25 years of publishing, this collection explores Homer, Lady Murasaki, Orhan Pamuk, Evliya Çelebi, William Blake, John Milton, and more.
Alan Taylor, Thomas Jefferson’s Education
From the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at UVA comes an absorbing study of the origins of Jefferson’s university.
James C. Zimring, What Science Is and How It Really Works
Written for a general audience, this book seeks to define science and answer key questions, such as: What is the basis of scientific claims? And how much confidence should we put in them?
Gregory Orr, The Blessing
Newly re-released, this memoir begins with the hunting accident where a young Orr accidentally shoots and kills his brother. Told in sparse, short chapters, this poetic exploration is a testament to the power of art.
Jerry Ratcliffe and Chris Graham, Team of Destiny: Inside Virginia Basketball’s Run to the 2019 National Championship
From the stunning first round defeat in 2018 to the program’s first national title in 2019, this book traces Tony Bennett and his team’s path to victory.
Ahmed al-Rahim, The Creation of Philosophical Tradition
From a professor of Islamic Studies at UVA comes a detailed history of the Avicennan tradition from the 11th to 14th century.
Charlotte Matthews, Comes With Furniture and People
This memoir tells the story of a daughter who watches her mother struggle with depression—and what happens to her after she loses her mother to leukemia and faces a breast cancer diagnosis of her own.
Chris Register, Conversations With US: Great Lakes States
The first installment in an eight-part series, this book follows a cycling journalist across the Great Lakes states as he seeks to “uncover the truth about our shared hopes, challenges, and potential.”
Njelle W. Hamilton, Phonographic Memories: Popular Music and the Contemporary Caribbean Novel
Analyzing the narrative and thematic influence of Caribbean music on the Caribbean novel, this book explores the cultural and national impact of these “musical fictions.”
Sarah Milov, The Cigarette: A Political History
Sharing the “untold political story of the most controversial consumer product,” this book chronicles the rise and fall of tobacco’s popularity.
Rita Mae Brown, Scarlet Fever
The 12th book in the “Sister Jane” series, this murder mystery set in the Blue Ridge Mountains pays homage to fox hunting and the traditions of Virginia horse country.
John Grisham, The Guardians
Quincy Miller has spent 22 years in prison for a murder he maintains he didn’t commit. His last hope to prove his innocence is a nonprofit organization called Guardian Ministries, run by lawyer and minister Cullen Post.
Bruce Holsinger, The Gifted School
Following the drama between a group of friends and parents after an exclusive school for gifted children opens in their community, this novel explores ambition, privilege, and the ripple effect that choices can have.
R. Barber Anderson, The Sunken Forest
This ecological thriller tells the story of an extraordinary forest, a billionaire trying to exploit its natural resources, and the hero who risks it all to protect it.
Christopher Tilghman, Thomas and Beal in the Midi
In 1892, an interracial couple escapes post- Reconstruction America to a new life, first in Paris and then as winemakers in the Languedoc countryside.
Ann Beattie, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck
Beginning at a boarding school in New Hampshire, this novel follows the effects of a complicated relationship between a gifted student and a problematic teacher.
Laurance Wieder, After Adam: The Books of Moses
Told in prose and verse, this genre-bending book begins with the creation of humans and ends with the death of Moses.
Brian Teare, Doomstead Days
A collection of site-specific poems documenting rivers, cities, forests, oil spills, mountains, and apocalyptic visions.
Gillian Conoley, A Little More Red Sun on the Human: New & Selected Poems
Using narrative, lyric, and fragmented forms, this collection explores democracy, metaphysics, motherhood, gender, and race.
Mariflo Stephens, Dream Straw
Stephens’ poetry deals with relationships, family, death, and identity.
Gregory Orr, The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write
A lyrical collection of grief, love, and the power of language.
Charles Wright, Oblivion Banjo
A collection of selected work from the Pulitzer Prize winner and former poet laureate of the United States.
Irène Mathieu, Grand Marronage
Examining the lives of Creole women of color, this collection explores themes of community, identity, and liberation.
There may be no better time for The Wife than this moment, in which the role of the male genius whose achievements came at the expense of unrecognized or exploited women is under scrutiny. (A few months in the doghouse, it seems, is plenty of time for celebrated entertainers to atone for sexually assaulting or intimidating women.) But the enforcing of male dominance at home or in the workplace need not only be specific acts of violence to be monstrous; denying a woman’s voice and right to be recognized for her achievements, then patronizingly claiming to love and value her, is not only maddeningly unjust but manipulative, whether malice is intended or not.
With that as its underlying theme, The Wife goes deeper than a bad man doing bad things to a good woman—it is just as interested in the society that made this situation permissible to begin with. The man in this case, is celebrated author Joseph Castleman (Jonathan Price), who has just won the Nobel Prize in Literature. His wife, Joan (Glenn Close), is excited, supportive, and protective of Joseph’s body of work. He frequently praises her and publicly declares gratitude for her love and support, while always including a bit of devaluation, along the lines of he wouldn’t be a great man without her love and support. Joan, on the other hand, has specifically said she does not like the spotlight, so all of this seems like a typical relationship between two slightly quirky and intelligent people from a previous generation who love one another in spite of their insecurities.
Where The Wife expands is by looking into the past, when Joan and Joseph first started their relationship—he was her writing teacher, praising her work with little moments of vague negative criticisms to assert his dominance. It is in this period that she both learned of her talent and grew cynical about the likelihood of succeeding as a woman in a male-dominated world of publishing. Without giving anything away, decisions made at that time were norms of the 1950s, but doing so locked in layers of resentment that went unaddressed for decades, until the Nobel Prize and the trip to Stockholm shined a light on problems and emotions that always existed.
190sFeaturing excellent performances and terrific direction by Björn Runge, The Wife tells an engaging story about a relationship, but makes a broader statement about power imbalance at home, in the workplace, and in society. To the world, Joan is “the wife,” and though many claim to love and recognize her, she is trapped in a gilded cage of being only the wife of a supposed genius, squashing her talent and individual voice, yet she actively resists being painted as a victim no matter how many affairs or indignities she endures. There is what could be called a twist that sheds more light on her character, but it is neither artificial nor cheap, growing naturally out of the emotions simmering beneath the surface. The Wife is an intelligent, tense, terrific movie whose narrow narrative scope allows it to deeply explore issues critical to society through excellently crafted characters, without cheapening the story or its message.
R, 100 minutes; Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056
A Simple Favor, Crazy Rich Asians, Mandy, The Nun, Peppermint, The Predator, White Boy Rick
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213
A Simple Favor, Alpha, Assassination Nation, Christopher Robin, Crazy Rich Asians, Fahrenheit 11/9, God Bless the Broken Road, The House With A Clock In Its Walls, Life Itself, Pope Francis—A Man of His Word, The Meg , Mission Impossible: Fallout, The Nun, Peppermint, The Predator, Searching, White Boy Rick, The Wife
Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000
A Simple Favor, BlacKkKlansman, Christopher Robin, Crazy Rich Asians, Fahrenheit 11/9, Juliet, Naked, The Nun, Peppermint, The Predator, Searching, White Boy Rick, Whitney
For Charlottesville-based author Stefan Bechtel, mystery is the essence of life.
“I grew up in Chicago, in the white-bread suburbs where every lawn was perfect. But way out on the edge of town there was a swamp. Lincoln Swamp,” Bechtel says. “We would ride our bikes all the way out to Lincoln Swamp, and we basically raised ourselves there. It was mysterious and alive, the strange and incredible all wrapped in one. It was kind of our religion.”
Now, with a dozen books and countless articles under his belt, the writer explains that the truism “write what you know” doesn’t really suit him. He quotes David McCullough when he says, “‘I want to write about what I don’t know.’”
The thrill of exploration—and sharing his discoveries—is the fuel that powers Bechtel’s work, which has appeared in 10 languages and publications such as Esquire and the Washington Post.
After graduating from the University of Miami with a degree in journalism, he worked at newspapers and magazines. While working for Rodale Press as a senior editor for Prevention magazine, Bechtel and his boss, Mark Bricklin, struck gold by creating a monthly newsletter called Men’s Health. That newsletter went on to become the largest men’s magazine brand in the world.
But it wasn’t until Bechtel got his first book contract with HarperCollins, while taking a leave of absence from Rodale, that he discovered his true calling.
“I remember, when I finished that first book, walking around the block probably 50 times,” he says. “I was just so high, so excited that I had done something I knew was good, and that I was going to be able to share this terrific story with people.”
That story began many years earlier, when Bechtel worked at a small city magazine in Greensboro, North Carolina. Out of the blue, he got a call from a woman who described unusual phenomena in her home, “like, she’d walk into a room and the fire would be going in the fireplace, but she had no memory of putting the fire there.”
His curiosity piqued, Bechtel joined the woman as she worked with Duke University researchers to investigate a potential haunting in her home. The results of that research were inconclusive—and so was Bechtel’s article.
But several years later, he received another call. This time, the woman, Kit Castle, had a definitive answer to the mystery.
“She said, ‘I been working with a psychiatrist, and it turns out I’m a multiple personality,’” says Bechtel. “‘And my spirit guide, Michael, asked me if you’d be going to write a book about me and what’s going on.’”
After checking with Castle’s doctor, psychiatrist and ex-husband, Bechtel dove back into the story, fell in love with the process, and Katherine, It’s Time: The Incredible Journey into the World of a Multiple Personality was published in 1989.
“It’s beyond exciting,” says Bechtel. “To be taken out of my life completely and confronted with something that’s utterly confounding and thrilling, because you can’t understand it. That’s writerly bliss.”
Since then, Bechtel has authored or co-authored 12 books, which have collectively sold more than 2 million copies. But writing books for a living hasn’t been the easiest path. His latest novel, Through a Glass, Darkly, spent five years gestating as a 13,000-word book proposal before St. Martin’s Press picked it up.
His latest project gave him a chance to re-engage with “the mysterious, the inexplicable. Not sci-fi or horror, but the uneasiness of something that doesn’t really make sense to the rational mind.”
This time, Bechtel’s search focused on the transformation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a shift he offhandedly calls the “Conan Doyle conundrum.”
After becoming famous as the creator of hyper-rational sleuth Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle transformed into a (widely ridiculed) champion of spiritualism, a kind of do-it-yourself religion wherein the living communicate with the dead.
“[It was] this crazy mania that swept across the United States and Europe,” Bechtel says. “In the 1920s, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla were actually competing to develop a machine called the ghost machine, which would discover the precise electrical frequency that would allow people to communicate directly with the spirit world. That’s how big it was.”
Bechtel and his co-author, Laurence Roy Stains, spent months researching historical records of trance mediums and séances, following Conan Doyle’s trail. “He read very widely and had come to his beliefs pretty cautiously,” Bechtel says. “He had hope that spiritualism would become the world’s first scientific religion, based on demonstrable facts and not on faith.”
Because in those days, Bechtel says, the theological war was a fight between the materialists and the spiritualists, the materialists being “the super scientific people who had reduced human life to four bags of water and a sack of salt.” And Conan Doyle “wanted to believe in magic. He wanted the world to be filled with mystery. And he felt like the materialists were completely ignoring or blocking that out.”
In this way, Bechtel echoes his subject from Through a Glass, Darkly.
“I love things that confound the rational mind. I love the creepy series of coincidences,” he says. “Our world is mysterious and wonderful. And if you lose sight of that, I think you might as well be dead.”