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July 18 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
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In-Person: An Evening with Rachel Eliza Griffiths & Marie Vickles
Books & Books presents…
AN EVENING WITH RACHEL ELIZA GRIFFITHS & MARIE VICKLES
discussing
Promise
(Random House, $28.00)
Tuesday, July 18th, 7:00 PM | Books & Books, Coral Gables
RSVP HERE FOR FREE
Books & Books is thrilled to present an evening with Rachel Eliza Griffiths & Marie Vickles discussing Griffiths’ book: Promise: A Novel (Random House, $28.00). In luminous, richly descriptive writing, Promise celebrates one family’s story of resistance. It’s a book that will break your heart—and then rebuild it with courage, hope, and love.
This event is FREE and open to the public and books will be available for purchase the night of the event so make sure to stay after the talk for a book signing! Please RSVP only if you intend to join us.
About the Book:
Two Black sisters growing up in small-town New England fight to protect their home, their bodies, and their dreams as the Civil Rights Movement sweeps the nation in this “magical, magnificent novel” (Marlon James) from “a startlingly fresh voice” (Jacqueline Woodson).
The people of Salt Point could indeed be fearful about the world beyond themselves; most of them would be born and die without ever having gone more than twenty or thirty miles from houses that were crammed with generations of their families. . . . But something was shifting at the end of summer 1957.
The Kindred sisters—Ezra and Cinthy—have grown up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbors, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful Maine village perched high up on coastal bluffs.
But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbors, including Ezra’s best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way. And as the news from distant parts of the country fills with calls for freedom, equality, and justice for Black Americans, the white villagers of Salt Point begin to view the Kindreds and the Junketts as threats to their way of life. Amid escalating violence, prejudice, and fear, bold Ezra and watchful Cinthy must reach deep inside the wells of love they’ve built to commit great acts of heroism and grace on the path to survival.
In luminous, richly descriptive writing, Promise celebrates one family’s story of resistance. It’s a book that will break your heart—and then rebuild it with courage, hope, and love.
BUY THE BOOK HERE
About the Author:
Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a poet, visual artist, and novelist. She is a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for a NAACP Image Award. Griffiths is also a recipient of fellowships including Cave Canem, Kimbilio, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and Yaddo. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Tin House.
About the Moderator:
Marie Vickles is the Senior Director of Education at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and administers programs at the museum that directly serve over 100,000 youth and adults annually. Marie has organized arts educational programs and exhibitions across the United States and the Caribbean for over 20 years. She is currently the Curator-in-Residence at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex and maintains an active practice as an independent curator. In her work as an arts educator and cultural practitioner, she is concerned with the relationship between creativity and community engagement – with the goal of supporting equity, sustainability, and access for all, through the arts.