friendship

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo has made a career exploring the complicated relationships of small-town America. His latest, 'Under the Falls,' follows a famous musician returning to the Adirondack town he fled years ago, where old friends, an old love and old secrets are waiting.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo has made a career exploring the complicated relationships of small-town America. His latest, 'Under the Falls,' follows a famous musician returning to the Adirondack town he fled years ago, where old friends, an old love and old secrets are waiting.

Bestselling author Richard Russo will be our guest on this week's book show. Russo knows something about small towns and about the people who leave them, the people who stay, and the trouble that follows when someone comes home. Russo is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls and the author of Bridge of Size, Straight Man, Nobody's Fool, and many others. His latest novel is 'Under the Falls.'

Ann Packer’s newest novel, “Some Bright Nowhere,” marks a profound return after a decade: it tells the story of Eliot and Claire, married nearly forty years in a quiet Connecticut town, facing the toughest chapter of their lives when Claire’s long-running illness draws toward its end.

Alafair Burke is the Edgar-nominated, New York Times best-selling author of fourteen novels of suspense. Her latest page-turner is “The Note.” The book follows three longtime friends who, despite their best intentions, don’t always bring out the best in one another.

Peter Heller is the best-selling author of "Burn," a novel about two men - friends since boyhood - who emerge from the woods of rural Maine to a dystopian country racked by bewildering violence.

Lifelong friends Lynn Nottage and Jonathan Lethem grew up on the same block. Lethem’s latest book is “Brooklyn Crime Novel;” and last season Nottage was the most-produced playwright in America.

If you are a regular listener to this program…or the Book Show…you know Joe has a soft spot for the Irish novel. Months ago, he began hearing about this new book taking Ireland by storm. It has now landed in the US. Caroline O’Donoghue’s very funny novel, "The Rachel Incident," is about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three.

Actor, producer, and current Co-Artistic Director at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago Glenn Davis joined us to talk about Rajiv Joseph's "King James," directed by Kenny Leon. The play is having its New York debut as Manhattan Theatre Club presents Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Center Theatre Group's "King James” off-Broadway at City Center.

Mona Simpson is one of the foremost chroniclers of the American family in our time. Her new novel, “Commitment,” is about a single mother’s collapse and the fate of her family after she enters a California state hospital in the 1970s.