Author Kidd Comes to Portsmouth

The Music Hall’s Writers on a New England Stage series is thrilled to welcome #1 New York Times bestselling author Sue Monk Kidd on Friday, May 8, 2015. Kidd will discuss her latest and highly praised novel, “The Invention of Wings,” a profound and richly complex work, that traces the lives of two unforgettable American women in a masterpiece of hope, daring, and desire, according to a press statement.

The 7:30 p.m. event in The Music Hall’s Historic Theater in downtown Portsmouth, includes an author presentation and on-stage interview with Virginia Prescott, host of New Hampshire Public Radio’s “Word of Mouth.” The series’ house band Dreadnaught will play live music during the one hour event.

“It is a thrill and a joy to be able to welcome to the Music Hall stage such an impactful and admirable writer as Sue Monk Kidd,” said Margaret Talcott, Producer of Writers on a New England Stage. “In this bold work, she compels us to confront the remarkable and sad truths of women’s slavery and women’s liberation (or lack of it) before the American Civil War there is much to learn and also to celebrate in the truth-based story. I can’t wait to hear more from her about the process of writing this book and its well-deserved fame.”

“The Invention of Wings” is an exquisitely written novel and a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Hetty “Handful” Grimké, an urban slave in early nineteenth-century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimké household. The Grimké’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday in 1803, when she is given ownership of ten-year-old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty-five years, as both strive for lives of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.

As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.

Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimké, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sue Monk Kidd is the award-winning and bestselling author of the novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair.The Secret Life of Bees spent more than 175 weeks on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list, has sold more than 6 million copies in the U.S., was turned into an award-winning major motion picture, and has been translated into 36 languages. The Mermaid Chair spent 24 weeks on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list, reaching the #1 position, and spent 22 weeks on the New York Times trade paperback list. Debuting at #1, The Invention of Wings spent more than 25 weeks on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list. Kidd is also the author of several acclaimed memoirs, including the New York Times bestseller Traveling with Pomegranates, written with her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor. Kidd lives in Florida with her husband.

Tickets and Signed Books

Tickets to Writers on a New England Stage: Sue Monk Kidd on Friday, May 8, are $13.25 ($11.25 for members of The Music Hall). For each 1-2 tickets sold, the purchase of a book voucher ($17, paperback) is required. Event tickets can be purchased at The Music Hall box office in the Historic Theater, 28 Chestnut Street, Portsmouth, or over the phone at 603-436-2400.

Signed copies of the author’s discussed work, THE INVENTION OF WINGS, can be reserved in advance with the purchase of a book voucher ($17, paperback). Vouchers can be redeemed on the night for a signed book. Additional copies of the book can be purchased as available that evening. Book vouchers are not available online � call or visit the box office to purchase or for more information

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