Dear VA-Hist members:
 
I would like to invite list members to the next in the Library of
Virginia's noontime presentations.  This Wednesday, July 9, 2003,
William Hoffman will speak on his recent novel Wild Thorn, published by
HarperCollins.  Mr. Hoffman is a former professor and
writer-in-residence at Hampden-Sydney College and lives in Charlotte
Court House, Virginia.  He is the author of four collections of stories
and twelve novels, including The Trumpet Unblown, Yancey's War, Furors
Die, A Death of Dreams, Tidewater Blood, and Blood and Guile.  He has
received a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship,
The John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, a Best American Short Stories
Award, The Fellowship of Southern Writers Hillsdale Prize, the O. Henry
Prize, and the Hammett Prize.  
 
As one reviewer noted, Wild Thorn is a "crime novel-meets-Southern
gothic."  Charley LeBlanc, the black sheep of a prominent family first
introduced in Hoffman's Hammett Prize-winning novel Tidewater Blood,
returns from Montana to his native Shawnee County in West Virginia.  He
goes to visit Aunt Jessie Arbuckle, but finds her home crawling with
police. LeBlanc spends the rest of the novel unraveling her mysterious
death.  Critics have praised Hoffman's strong character development and
excellent dialogue, and, like his book Tidewater Blood, Wild Thorn
explores social relations in interesting ways.  The book will be
available in the Library Shop and a book-signing in the lobby will
follow Mr. Hoffman's talk.
 
Thanks for your attention,
 
Gregg
 
Gregg D. Kimball
Director of Publications
  and Educational Services
Library of Virginia
804/692-3722
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