Linda Kass discusses her new novel "World News from Waverley High" with Author Susan Scarf Merrell

Join author Linda Kass and special guest Susan Scarf Merrell on September 17th at 6:00 PM for an engaging discussion about Kass’s latest novel, World News from Waverley High.

register here easthampton.librarycalendar.com/event/author-talk-mario-bertollini-9315

"Discover what everyone is saying about the book:"

“...A SOULFUL COMING-OF-AGE NOVEL WITH AN UNUSUALLY
APPEALING, INTELLIGENT, AND OPEN-HEARTED NARRATOR....”
—Tom Perrotta, author of New York Times bestsellers Ghost
Town and Election
 

“BEAUTIFULLY NUANCED!”
—Connie Schultz, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author
of New York Times bestseller The Daughters of Erietown
 

“A STIRRING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING READ!”
—Helen Schulman, author of Lucky Dogs and New York Times
bestseller This Beautiful Life

About the book: 1969. Lena Rosen is an intelligent, observant teenager torn between spontaneity and self-consciousness. During her junior year, she becomes attuned to the pulse of her times in her first-period Current History class, where rebellion, social change, and musical innovation of the 1960s dominate discussion. When Lena becomes the associate editor of the school newspaper The Beacon, she's drawn into the swirling discourse surrounding the Vietnam War, civil rights, environmental disasters, and campus protests—while also grappling with her growing attraction to Jack Stone, the paper’s editor.

As the year progresses and the antiwar movement gains momentum, the unrest builds at Waverley High. Lena wrestles with her own cultural and religious identity as a Jewish teen while she and her fellow students struggle to cope with racial discord, a bomb threat, and the emotional toll of a world that seems to be unraveling. When tragedy collapses the distance between headlines and Lena’s own life, she must decide what it means to stand for peace—and to hope for a better world.

About the Author

LINDA KASS began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. She is the author of three previous works of historical fiction: Tasa’s Song (2016), A Ritchie Boy (2020), and Bessie (2023). A longtime civic leader, she is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Central Ohio. Linda lives in Columbus, Ohio. Find her online at lindakass.com, @lindakass, LindaKassAuthor and The heart of the story | Ohio State Alumni Magazine

Susan Scarf Merrell

Susan Scarf Merrell is the author of Shirley: A Novel, which became a major motion picture starring Elisabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg. She is also the author of A Member of the Family, and The Accidental Bond: How Sibling Connections Influence Adult Relationships. With the novelist Meg Wolitzer, she created the BookEnds Fellowship novel revision program. Merrell taught for many years in the MFA in Creative Writing & Literature at the Lichtenstein Center of Stony Brook Southampton, served as fiction editor of The Southampton Review and directed The Southampton Writers Conference. Essays, book reviews and short fiction appear most recently in The New York Times, Newsday, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Common Online, The Washington Post, and East Magazine.