Authors Margaret McMullan and Rev. Dr. Christine Chakoian at Lake Forest Book Store

Friday June 5 at 6:00 p.m.

Register at Lake Forest Book Store at 847-234-4420

Margaret McMullan, author of Every Father’s Daughter: Twenty-Four Women Writers Remember Their Fathers

(McPherson $29.95)

“What is it about the relationship between fathers and daughters that provokes so much exquisite tenderness, satisfying communion, longing for more, idealization from both ends, followed often if not inevitably by disappointment, hurt, and the need to understand and forgive, or to finger the guilt of not understanding and loving enough?” writes Phillip Lopate, in his introduction to this collection of 24 personal essays by women writers writing about their fathers. The editor, Margaret McMullan, is herself a distinguished novelist and educator. About half of these essays were written by invitation for this anthology; others were selected by Ms. McMullan and her associate, Philip Lopate, who provides an introduction. Contributors include many well-known writers Alice Munro, Jayne Anne Phillips, Alexandra Styron, Ann Hood, Bobbie Ann Mason, Maxine Hong Kingston among them and writers perhaps less well-known but no less cogent, inventive, perceptive, questioning or loving of their fathers.

Margaret McMullan is the acclaimed author of When I Crossed No-Bob and How I Found the Strong, as well as the adult novels In My Mother’s House and When Warhol Was Still Alive. Her work has appeared in such publications as Glamour, the Chicago Tribune, and Michigan Quarterly Review. She is a professor and the chair of the English department at the University of Evansville in Indiana.

Rev. Dr. Christine Chakoian, author of Cryptomnesia: How a Forgotten Memory Could Save the Church

(Abingdon Press $18.99)

Christine Chakoian is Pastor and Head of Staff at First Presbyterian Church in Lake Forest, Illinois, one of the largest congregations in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to be led by a woman. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Yale Divinity School, and McCormick Theological Seminary (D.Min). She is an editor and writer for Feasting on the Gospels, a contributor to the Day1 radio program, 30 Good Minutes television show, and the Presbyterian Outlook magazine.

How can we Christians move forward, when our very existence seems imperiled? We already know the way, for we’ve been through this before. But we have forgotten; we have cryptomnesia. Cryptomnesia is the reappearance of a suppressed or forgotten memory which is mistaken for a new experience. (Collins English Dictionary). The world is changing, and it is changing fast. Social media friendships, global commerce, online education, populist uprisings, e-books, and smartphones are just a sample of the Internet’s growing impact on our lives. Americans are rapidly becoming more mobile, worldly, and secular--all while it feels like the church we know is being left behind. Growing numbers of “spiritual but not religious” show disinterest in church, and mainline churches fear imminent demise. How do we find a way forward? Ironically, by looking backward...

Event date: Friday, June 5, 2015 - 6:00pm to 7:00pm Event address: 680 N. Western Ave. Lake Forest, IL 60045